The Unnamed Spitfire
by TheMaddieArchives
Summary: "…Then I was gone. So, this is what it's like, I thought. Being 'gone.' This was not how I expected it to feel like. Because I could still see him. I could still hear him, too. He was still next to me, still singing to me, as if he either didn't know that I was gone, or he didn't want to accept that I was gone. No, not yet, I thought. I'm not gone yet. I just can't be gone yet–..."
1. Chapter 1

The hand made sign that hung around my neck had not worked as well as I had hoped it would.

_Will work for shelter_, it read in my large and bold handwriting. I stood at one of the busiest street corners in the Shire, never mind Hobbiton, stupidly hoping someone would hire a presumably 10 to 15-year-old hobbit girl. Nobody even looked at me twice. When the sun would set, it would be a total of three days without food. My hair was tucked into my bluish hat, framing my bony face.

One would never think that a skinny hobbit existed.

However, when someone did stop, she was fat and sour faced. She looked only a few years older than me–somewhere between 16 and 20–and definitely taller, but she was still unpleasant to look at. She stood in front of me, and folded her arms across her chest, surveying me like I had seen some hobbits do to a pig at the market. After a moment she nodded to herself, muttered, "You'll do well," and grabbed my arm, proceeding to pull me along.

I didn't protest or speak up, I hadn't spoken in about three days, but my eyes widened slightly in fear. But at the same time, I swear, I experienced what I believed to be called _hope_ at the idea that this woman would want me.

When this hobbit-woman (if she was old enough to be called that, I'm still not sure) finally stopped in her tracks, we were standing in front of a hobbit-hole with a large round green door and a lovely little garden. The woman opened the gate roughly and pulled me inside, up to the door where she knocked loudly. I could hear scurrying inside the hobbit-hole before the door was opened by an older male hobbit with a candle in his hand; it was rather late after all.

"Bilbo Baggins!" the woman greeted him immediately.

"Oh… Hello, Lobelia," he said exasperatedly. He paused when he saw me. "And who is this?"

Without another word said, the woman, Lobelia, continued on into the hobbit-hole, her hand still firmly holding onto my arm, which was starting to hurt a bit. "Oh, what does her name matter?" Lobelia went on. "As the new resident of Bag End, making you by far the most respectable hobbit in the Shire, it is only fitting for you to have a maid! You know, to do all of your housework!" She cleared her throat. "Besides, it'll be your birthday in… not too long from now."

"My birthday is not for another two months," Bilbo informed her. "Where did you find this girl and what is her name?" he asked sternly. I looked from one to the other; Bilbo seemed to be much older than her, but Lobelia did not let that soften her argument, or her outspokenness.

"If you must know, I found her at the market corner," she explained, rolling her eyes. "She seems rather young, and looks just famished; don't you think you could be the one to feed her and help her?" She gestured to my sign. "See? _Will work for shelter._ Doesn't that just sound like a deal?" she asked him. I wasn't sure where Lobelia was going with this, but I knew that I didn't like her.

"What do you mean she's famished? Where are her parents?" he asked worriedly, looking to me for an answer.

"Exactly!" Lobelia pointed out. "Her parents were nowhere in sight! So, I guess I figured you could just take her in–as a maid, nothing more."

Bilbo gazed at me for a minute before speaking. "If– I'm saying _if _–I hire her, this is in no way going to get me to put the Bracegirdle's down as heirs to Bag End–"

"Whatever made you think that?" she exclaimed. "I am Lobelia Bracegirdle-soon-to-be-Sackville-Baggins, who are the _real_ heirs to Bag End by the way–"

"–You are nowhere near old enough to marry that Otho, young lady–"

"–And I can assure you that _bribery _is not in my nature!"

"If you say so," he sighed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Then in that case–"

"Perfect! She will be the best maid in the Shire, and you two will get along so well!" Lobelia said, releasing my sore arm and making her way to the door again. I immediately started to rub it gingerly. "I shall come over any time you need me, but I don't suspect you will. You've always been great with children, dear Bilbo. Buh-bye, you two!"

The door snapped shut.

I was then left alone in the foyer with this complete stranger who looked to me pityingly. He knelt down to be eye level with me. "So… My name is Bilbo Baggins," he introduced himself, his hand held out to shake. I shook it carefully. "What's your name, if I may ask?"

I shrugged my shoulders. _I don't know._

"Alright then… How long have you been out there?" he asked, ruffling his hair as if it helped his thought process.

I displayed three dirt-caked fingers. _Three days._

"Okay. Have you eaten at all in that time?"

I shook my head._ No._

Bilbo sighed as he studied the sign that still hung around my neck. "Tell you what, how about I tuck you into bed and I'll get you some supper?" he offered.

I nodded my head without a second thought._ Yes, please._

He stood up to his full height, took my hand (much lighter than Lobelia would have, I might add), and led me down the numerous never-ending halls of Bag End. He eventually stopped at what looked like a rather large children's room. The bed was huge and had thick and fluffy goose down covers. The one window was adorned with green and brown curtains. But what really caught my eye was what was all along the walls.

I let go of Bilbo's hand and walked to one of these walls. They were covered in dark wood shelves and they housed something completely foreign to me.

"They're called _books_," Bilbo explained, practically reading my mind.

I peered over my shoulder at him. He nodded his head, knowing what it is that I was silently asking. I hooked the thickest "book" that I could reach with my fingers and pulled it loose of its bearings. I ended up falling to the floor with its weight.

"Whoa, careful there," Bilbo said as he helped me back up. "Ah, _The Journey: a Hobbit's Tale._ I read this when I was about nineteen," he smiled. "Would you like me to read it to you?" he asked me.

I smiled and nodded my head._ Yes, please._

"Then it's settled," he said. "You get into bed, I'll bring you some supper, and then I'll read to you."

Excitedly, I ran past him and jumped onto the bed. He laughed at that.

"I take it you'd like that."

I nodded vigorously. _Yes._

"Oh, by the way," Bilbo added. "Do you ever talk…?"

"…Yes," I giggled.


	2. Chapter 2

_Fifteen years later…_

My own two feet were the only things keeping me in the tree, and not falling to the ground. Though, falling to my death was what I generally tried to not think of when I was up in a tree of all places. _Hunting and being silent _was a lot higher on my list of priorities then.

Then the footsteps came.

Hastily, I willed myself to climb up another branch, using the foliage to my advantage. The footsteps continued; they were a bit heavier than a rabbit's footsteps, so I guessed that it was a deer of some kind. They were also in pairs. There were _two_ deer!

My eyes widened at the possibility. I silently pulled my prized bow from my back. I notched an arrow and pulled it back to my lip as I raised it in preparation to shoot. My breath was shaky as I took a deep breath to steady my aim. My knee was a bit wobbly from supporting my weight in the position I was in in the tree, and the fact that I was _so high up in a tree in the first place_.

_Calm down_, I told myself. _Think about what _two deer_ could sell for at the market. They're worth about… I don't know, twelve baskets of Farmer Maggot's precious mushrooms– no, I don't like mushrooms. Okay, well I guess that they're also worth about three-dozen rolls. I like those; those are good. Okay, just think about that. Think about rolls… Think about–_

"Fili, if we don't hurry up, we'll be late–!"

I silently cursed myself as the arrow slipped out of my grip, getting stuck in the bark of an oak tree. It didn't stay there long as a hand reached up and plucked it from its bearings. My mind released a long slew of curse words as I hid further behind the trunk of my tree, the leaves successfully hiding me, but unfortunately obscuring my vision.

"Kili, we'll be alright, Uncle won't start without– what are doing?"

My breath hitched as the footsteps stopped. I had to cover my mouth with my hand to both keep myself calm, and silent.

"An arrow just hit that tree."

"Let me see… Kili, it's just an arrow, you've shot more of those than I can count."

"I know that. But, it just flew right into that tree, a _foot_ _from my head!_"

"Put your bow down. It's not even orcish."

"So, what? You think a _hobbit_ shot an arrow?"

"It's far more likely than seeing an orc in these parts. We haven't even seen any on the road. And how would you know whether hobbits couldn't shoot? You've never even met one before."

"Neither have you."

"Exactly."

My curiosity got the best of me as I so desperately wanted to know who this _Fili and Kili_ were. The names sounded so familiar, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. The word _orc_, however, I did know. Though, I'd never seen one before, a huge chunk of the books in my room was devoted to the heroic slaying of these things.

As soundless as I knew I could move, I found myself taking extra care to not be spotted. I was always a bit shy, but some part of me was deathly afraid of who these people were. One of them _did _mention a bow, and they were talking all defensively, as if they could use that bow to– _By the stars, they mean to kill somebody with a bow. _I managed to make it to one of the top-most branches without panicking too much.

In the end, I could only see the tops of their heads, which was about as much as I wanted to see. If I could see much more, they might've been able to see me as well, and I wasn't taking that risk. Bilbo had taught me not to do many things over the years, and taking risks was one of them. I ignored that rule a good many times, but I was in the mood to listen to him right about then.

From their voices, I had guessed that they were men, but looking at their hair, I thought they were women. One of them had dark brown hair, the other had blonde, and they both wore it long, the blonde one using various braids. They both also had silver–or maybe it was pewter–hair clips in the back. I thought that that was a clever idea; I didn't know how someone could control hair that long.

That was when I heard it.

_You have got to be kidding me_, I thought when I heard the sound of even more footsteps, sounding much heavier than before. My head snapped up in search of this new sound's source. _You have got to be kidding me! _I mouthed upon seeing a huge black bear lumber into view.

When I checked, I found that the two people below me had indeed noticed the bear, but were frozen to where they stood. _Are you insane?_ I wanted to scream. _Run– no, don't do that, you might set it off. I don't know– back away slowly, or something– just get out of here!_

Being this close to be mauled by a bear, or watch somebody else be, was not something that I was planning to do, and thus didn't study up on what to do in the event of an attack.

Slowly, the dark haired one drew out his bow and notched an arrow, seeming to be going with the _no sudden movements _approach.

_Oh, heck no!_ I thought before I pulled back my own arrow and let it fly, slicing through the air with a soft whistle and meeting its mark at the bear's neck. The dark haired one flinched at the sight of my second arrow.

The bear roared. I released two more arrows, effectively killing it. And once it was gone, as Bilbo had taught me to say instead of the d-word, I immediately looked to the duo below me, silently urging them to get out of there. It didn't look like a female, so I immediately jumped to the conclusion that Mama Bear was not far behind. It was most certainly not a child, however; I really did not know anything about bears.

Instead, the dark haired one walked to the bear and, after kicking it to see if it was truly dead (yes, that d-word), pulled out the arrows, finding them to be identical to the one he found just moments earlier. Not caring in the slightest, the blonde one, _the wiser one_, I concluded, tried to move the other along. "Kili, we need to get out of here, now."

"But– but, the arrows. They're the same."

"Just keep walking– and don't shoot anything!" the blonde added hastily.

Once they were out of my immediate sight, I finally let myself breathe and wipe the sweat off my face.

"Those were my arrows," I whined to a robin that sat on a nearby branch. I crouched down to sit on the branch since my feet were aching beyond words.

The bird chirped happily in reply.

The branch emitted a loud cracking sound.

"Oh, come o–" The rest of my sentence was lost as I fell to the earth, the bird being the last thing I saw before then. I did not care in the slightest if the duo heard me scream or not.

* * *

"Helena Paige Baggins! I've been worried sick! You said you'd be back an hour ago!" Bilbo exclaimed upon my arrival home. As angry as he was with me, I could still hear the proudness in his voice when he said the name that he gave me. Honestly, it was a great name.

_Helena _standing for the main female character in _The Journey: a Hobbit's Tale_, which he did indeed read to me, at one– sometimes two chapters a night. Plus, it was a fairly respectable sounding hobbit name.

_Paige _standing for my over all love of books and knowledge.

And _Baggins_ he insisted that I take as my last name, since I had none. It made many hobbits rumor about how _Bilbo Baggins has taken in a stray!_ This, of course, did not sit well with Lobelia Now-Officially-Sackville-Baggins, to say the least. Also, he told me that the Baggins family tends to be made of avid readers, and thus have many books.

So, essentially, my real name was _Books Books Books_.

I think that when I was first given my name, about two weeks after he took me in, I _did_ love it. Though, as time wore on, I grew to respond better to _Unnamed Spitfire_ as the gossips and bullies would call me. I knew that it wasn't supposed to be a nice name, but I was just so fascinated by the term _spitfire._

Bilbo, however, did not like the nickname what so ever and would never call me that. It was only _Helena _with him, with the occasional exclamation of my full name. I liked that, though.

"Bilbo, look at the clock," I said. "The little hand is on the five, not the six." He ruffled his hair at the realization. "And you think _I_ need glasses!" I laughed.

"Sorry…" he sighed, as if he could finally breathe.

"There's no need," I said as I placed my bag of fish, which I caught before the bear incident, on the table.

"I was just worried, that's all," he stated as he started to inspect the various trout and basses in the net, clearly not wanting to continue.

"Why? Did something happen when I was gone?"

"No. Nothing happened."

"Then what's there to be worried about?" I asked him, a smile cracking across my face. "I always hunt in the woods _surrounding_ Hobbiton. I never go anywhere near the Old Forest, or the Barrow Downs for that matter."

"Yes, yes, you're a perfect little angel," Bilbo smirked at me, looking up from the fish.

"Exactly," I added. "Now, I'm going to get cleaned up, then I'm going to the market to sell about half of these," I explained, referring to the fish.

"To think that I would see the day when you would actually wash up before going somewhere!" he called to me when I was halfway down the hallway to my room.

"Blegh!" I yelled back as I entered my room.

* * *

The idea that I was washing up had more truth in it than lies, but I didn't let him know the whole story. After I grabbed a change of clothes from my room, and made it to the bathroom, I slid down to the floor in pain.

I had survived the _falling out a tree _aspect of the bear incident with a lot of proof. My arms and legs were crisscrossed with cuts and scrapes, as was my right cheek. I had just narrowly escaped breaking a bone by landing in a pile of leaves. I'm not a hundred percent sure how Bilbo didn't notice the cut on my cheek. I had taken the precaution of letting my hair out of my hat to hide it. He looked funny at the way I wore my hair when I walked in, but he didn't look at it again.

Once I found them in the cabinet, I applied ointment to my scrapes and bandaged up the deeper ones. I immediately felt better as I rubbed my arms and legs with the minty salve. For the one on my face, I simply cleaned it out and tried to not mess with it. It was a rather thin scrape anyway.

I slipped my brown and gray dress on and tucked my hair back into my blue hat and walked back out, trying my hardest to hide my minor injuries from Bilbo, knowing how much he would freak out: a lot.

* * *

"Hey, Helena!" Daisy Jane Took called to me when she saw me at the market. Bilbo had been a bit wary of me befriending a Took. Nearly as soon as he took me in _Baggins=good, Took=bad _was practically nailed into my head. But DJ, as I called her, was different. As Tookish and reckless as she was, it didn't take long for Bilbo to like her. "Are you alright?" she asked me when she saw the slightly vacant look on my face.

"Oh– oh, yeah, I'm okay," I answered her. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "Okay, fine– I went hunting today and fell out of a tree again." I rolled up my left sleeve to show her one of the bandages. "Not too much damage this time, but it still wasn't fun."

"If you're so afraid of heights, why do you keep hunting in the trees?" she asked me.

"Because, DJ, it's easier. The game can never see me from up there. Probably a good thing I was in a tree, too," I added, continuing to walk to my usual fish buyers. Her blonde curly hair bounced as she half-jogged to keep up with me. "Out of nowhere come these two travellers, and then, also out of nowhere, comes a bear. I shot it, but they didn't notice me– _thank goodness_."

"Is this the apocalypse?" she asked no one in particular. "Travellers _and _bears, in the Shire_ at the same time_. Did you catch their names, or anything?"

"I'm pretty sure that bears don't have names, DJ."

"No! I mean, the travellers!"

"Well, when they talked to each other, they seemed to call themselves _Fili and Kili_, whatever that means," I explained. "I'm not sure why, but those names just sound so familiar to me. What about you?"

"…No," DJ replied after a moment of thought. "They don't sound like hobbit names, though."

"That's what I thought," I said. "They definitely didn't seem like hobbits. They had long hair– and I think I saw them wearing _shoes_."

"That does sound weird." We had to pause our conversation so that I could sell three trout to an older hobbit-lady, Mirabella Brandybuck, the mother of a young hobbit-girl that DJ would often babysit named Primula.

"Well, there aren't any settlements of Big Folk around here until you get to Bree," she continued when we were done. "But there is that one place. It's not a settlement of Big Folk, and it's kind of further off. What's the name of that place? It's in the mountains." She lightly smacked her forehead as she thought. "Oh– what was it? What was it? Oh! It's called Ered–"

"Well, if it isn't the two prettiest hobbits in the Shire," Willard Goodbody said in his usual annoying flirtatious voice as he clapped us on the shoulders from behind. "Oh, but it is. It's The Unnamed Spitfire and The Dumb Blondie," he continued as he held our chins between his index fingers and thumbs.

"What do want, Will?" DJ asked him, clearly not in the mood for his antics, her blue eyes showing it. Nor was I, only I kept silent, as it was my go-to plan for these sorts of situation.

"Only to remind you two that neither of you accepted _or denied_ my proposals yet," he stated. I could have guessed that it was about that, easily. Ever since DJ and I were kids, Will picked on us nonstop. Then, around the time we turned twenty-five, he had somewhat changed his former attitude and made it his life's mission to marry one, or both of us. By that time, he had proposed to us about four times. And he was asking us about the fifth.

"With all due respect," DJ said with no respect what so ever, "I don't think that any hobbit-girl in Middle Earth wants some prick to propose to both her and her best friend."

"So, what you're saying here," Will went on, "is that I have to choose between the two of you?"

"No, Will, that's not what I mea–"

"Because in that case, I think that I choose… Hmm, this is actually tougher than I thought it would be." He paused in thought. "I think… that I choose… The Unnamed Spitfire. Everyone loves a good and quiet wife after all." He then dropped down to one knee– well, sort of. He balanced on the balls of his big feet, not wanting to get dirt on his fancy red and brown clothes. "Well then, Unnamed Spitfire, would you delight me to no end and make your pretty face my wife?"

I looked at DJ. _Should I?_

Knowing what I meant, she nodded ever so slightly. _Go ahead._

"Well?" Will asked impatiently. "What do you say?"

I looked down at him.

A small playful smile light up my face as I kneed him in the chest and screamed _No_, then promptly started running back to Bag End.

"Keep going!" I heard DJ yell to me. "I'll hold him off for you!"

I can most certainly confirm to you that I did not stop running until I made it to Bag End.


	3. Chapter 3

"I am never going to the market again!" I screamed at the top of my lungs upon arriving at Bag End, despite being mostly out of breath from the running.

"Oh, dear– was it that Willard Goodbody again?" Bilbo asked me from the kitchen, not needing any more information, and ignoring how irrational my statement probably sounded.

"You can bet your pipe-weed it was!" I exclaimed as I walked into the kitchen. Bilbo was standing by the oven, a pan of rolls in his gloved hand. I plopped myself down in the nearest chair and threw my head back, taking in the savory smell of the rolls. I tiredly rubbed my face with my hands.

"I just don't understand why someone could be that mean to you," Bilbo said, putting the rolls on the cooling rack.

"I don't understand many, _many_ things, Bilbo, but I _know_ that it's because I'm just not ordinary," I explained to him.

"Now, don't you say that," he stopped me. "You're a Baggins, you're just as ordinary as anybody else."

"Thanks, I guess," I said, sitting back up. I looked at the rolls. "If you wanted to make something, you should've told me. I could've stayed and made them."

"Can I help it if I want to be nice?" he asked me.

"Well, you sure could warn me first," I replied.

Bilbo looked at me, as if asking, _What am I going to do with you?_

I raised my eyebrows with a shrug and a smirk, _Nothing._

* * *

"I'm going get a start on the chores," I stated, getting up from my seat after a moment.

The thing about my chores is that I didn't have to do them unless we knew that someone was coming over, and judging by the number of rolls Bilbo had made, I went ahead and did them, should an unexpected guest come along. DJ always came over before we even invited her, insisting that she could help me with the chores, and I had a feeling that she would easily be coming over after Willard Goodbody Proposal #5.

She never minded anyhow, whether Bag End was clean or not: the complete opposite of Lobelia. Every time _she'd _come over, she'd first scold me for not being a better maid, and then she would scold Bilbo for not being stricter with me. It was never pleasant when she came over, and it was almost always unexpected. So, over the years, I grew to be ready for anything by cleaning the hobbit-hole everyday. It did take a lot of time out of my hunting and reading time, but I considered it worth it.

I ended up finishing my chores, consisting of–but not limited to–sweeping the floors, polishing the windows, making the beds, cleaning the dishes, watering the flowers, and dusting the paintings, in record time: 1 hour and 30 minutes. I was always beating my own records.

By the time I was finished, I absolutely fell into bed, every part of me aching.

But at the same time, I knew that I wasn't quite finished yet. After a moment, I got back up and walked to my bookshelves. I sighed.

_Fili and Kili._ I knew that I had heard–or read–those names before, I just wasn't sure where.

_Okay, anything hobbit related is completely out the window, _I thought. If you were to take out all the works of fiction, and all of the biographies of famous hobbits (which were short in number, and rather boring) from my bookshelves, that left you with reference books about elves and dwarves. I had read one of the books about elves before, and I ruled those out immediately, knowing that I probably wouldn't be able to hear their footsteps if they were elves. So, that left dwarves…

After checking both of their publication dates (there were only two), I picked up the newest one and sat back down on my bed. I flipped to the back pages, where the index was given, and searched for _Fili _and _Kili_. The book did not have as many entries about _Kili_, since it was supposedly published the year that he was born (and yes, it was a he), as it did of _Fili_. However, he was still what dwarves would consider a toddler; so there really weren't many things about them other than the fact that they were the first and second heirs in the line of Durin.

That new information made me stop what I was doing and just sort of stare at the words on the page. When I was able to tear myself from the words, I looked at a pencil drawing of the older one holding his newborn brother.

_I saved the lives of two princes? _I thought skeptically. _And they were… traveling alone?_ My mind then gave itself a headache with all of the questions I had. _What were they doing? Where were they going? Should I have helped them? They could've gotten themselves killed by another bear! What happens if I see them again? Do I tell them that I shot the bear? Or do I leave it alone?_ However, there was one question that was especially loud in my head. I was about to look for the answer when Bilbo called me to come and eat supper, as it was rather late now: _Who's 'Uncle'?_

* * *

The night was very quiet and peaceful, though, admittedly a bit cloudy. There was only one passer by, either going to, or going home from the Green Dragon. It was the sort of perfect night that was practically begging to be disturbed.

"It looks a bit like it might rain," I guessed, looking out the kitchen window.

"You say things like that all the time, and you're never right," Bilbo pointed out, waving his hand at me. "Come and eat."

"Alright," I playfully groaned. Bilbo had fried up two of the basses for supper, one for each of us. He was dressed in his patchwork robe; the patchwork part coming in from when I tried to fix a couple of tears 14 years prior, having not known that the fabrics needed to match. But Bilbo didn't mind at all, and wore it most every day.

I was still dressed in my usual clothes- 'the average maid's clothes' that Lobelia made me every year for my birthday. It was basically just a brown knee length dress with elbow length sleeves and a gray apron. She was adamant that I was nothing more than a maid, and tried to enforce the idea at every opportunity possible. I didn't mind though; as long as I could wear pants and a shirt when I hunted, and wear my hat with the dress, I was all right.

Nearly as soon as I sat down and Bilbo started to season his fish, the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," I said, getting back up again.

"Thank you," Bilbo replied quickly, "but I think I'll get it." He looked a bit frazzled at the sound of the bell, just like how he looked when I came home earlier that day.

I nodded in response, waiting until after he was out of the kitchen to get back up and look into the hallway to see whom it was. A part of me thought it was going to be DJ, but the look on Bilbo's face made me think it would be Lobelia.

They were nowhere near who it was at the door.

"Is that a…?" I whispered.

Standing in the doorway was a large burly man with a beard and tattoos on his head. He was dressed in fur and I could see many weapons at his side.

His voice was gruff, but I could just make out what he said. "Dwalin, at your service," he greeted with a bow.

Bilbo stammered. "Hm– oh, Bilbo Baggins… at yours," he said, tying up his robe. When 'Dwalin' continued into the foyer, he continued, "I'm– I'm sorry, do we know each other?"

"No," he grumbled, and then continued on inside Bag End, taking off his cloak. "Which way is it, laddie?" he asked. "Is it down here?"

"Is– is what down where?" Bilbo asked.

"Supper," Dwalin explained, shoving his cloak into Bilbo's arms. "He said there'd be food, and lots of it." He then continued looking for the kitchen, basically winging it.

"He said?" Bilbo called to him. "Who said?"

* * *

I was then stricken with the realization that I was _in_ the kitchen. And that 'Dwalin' was actually on the right path to it. I panicked, to say the least. But he came in before I could come up with any sort of plan on what to say.

So, I was stuck with an awkwardly straight face and my hands shaking behind my back.

"And who are you, lass?" he asked of me, speaking softer than he had with Bilbo, but not by much. "Master Baggins wife?"

"No. I'm– I'm his, uh, maid, sir," I stuttered. "Uh– Helena Paige, at your service," I quickly added with a probably too low curtsy. Poorly placed, definitely, however. I had been standing by a shelf, and I hit my head on it when I straightened up again. I left my last name out so that he wouldn't ask me any more questions.

Dwalin nodded as I rubbed the sore spot on my head. "Dwalin, at your service, my lady," he said with the same bow that he gave Bilbo– who was still nowhere in sight. He then lumbered over to the table, sat down, and started to devour our supper.

"Um, I'm– I'm sorry, but, uh, that would be Bilbo's supper, Mister Dwalin," I pointed out awkwardly.

He glared at me for a second.

"But you can have it!" I said. "I'm sure he's not very hungry. Speaking of which, I– I should probably look for him." You didn't have to tell me twice to get out of there.

I found him in the hallway, having taken forever to hang up Dwalin's cloak and close the door, pacing back and forth.

"_Bilbo!_" I whispered loudly. "_What is he doing here?_"

"_I don't know._"

"_Yes, you do. Something happened when I was gone! Don't lie to me."_

"_He's probably just a weary traveller!_"_  
_

"_A weary traveller who's eating your supper, that's what he is…_"

"_What?_"

And without another word said, Bilbo ran down the hallway to the kitchen.

And just as soon as he turned a corner, the doorbell rang yet again.

"I got it!" I yelled across the hallway before I opened the door to be greeted by another of what I had concluded were dwarves. This one was much older and had a long white beard.

"I'm sorry, I think I'm at the wrong house," he said upon seeing me.

"Are you here for Mister Bilbo Baggins?" I asked.

"Yes, actually. Are you a relative of his?" he asked.

"No, sir. I'm only his maid," I answered looking down at my hairy hobbit-feet.

"Well, in that case," the dwarf said, bringing my attention back to him. "Balin, at your service." He bowed lightly and politely.

"Good evening, Master Balin," I smiled. "Helena Paige, at your service," I curtsied again, knowing what to do this time.

"It is," Balin said, looking to the sky. "Though, I do think it might rain later."

I giggled softly. "Would you mind telling Mister Baggins that? He never believes me when I say so."

"Not at all, lass," he said, walking inside. I silently smacked myself when I realized I had just let him in.

The instant Balin saw Dwalin he greeted him with an "Evening, brother," a small exchange of how much he had gone white, and a head butt. The last interaction made me flinch slightly as I closed the door. Bilbo, however–who had just come back, again–was positively flustered by it, and followed them into the pantry.

I was nowhere near interested in Bilbo's one-sided conversation about how he hadn't been expecting company and was most definitely not prepared for it. Instead, I was running up and down the hallways, gathering chairs for them to sit on in the dining room. Then I went to fill two tankards with ale from Bilbo's beer barrel, which I rarely used, since I was still underage and he insisted that he'd get it himself.

When Bilbo saw me doing so, he called, "Don't encourage them!" to me.

I flat out ignored it with a roll of my eyes.

Of the things that I already knew about dwarves, I knew that they treasured, presumably among other things, their beards, gold, and ale. So, I went ahead and filled the tankards to the brim with the amber-colored drink, and silently prepared myself to get more if they needed it, which I assumed they would.

I was so caught up with my own thoughts that I didn't even notice the flying piece of blue cheese coming from the pantry, which hit me square in the face. It didn't hurt; it shocked me more than anything. And by consequence, my arms shot up to protect myself from anything else that might be coming towards my face, the two tankards filled with beer still in my hands…

My hat, my apron, and dress were absolutely dripping with beer, pooling at my hairy feet. "… Who threw that?" I asked no one in particular with a grit of my teeth, beginning to seethe.

"Here, let me help you," Bilbo said as he guided me back to the kitchen. He quickly handed me a washcloth, knowing full well what could happen when I was angry. "Are you alright?" he asked me.

I sighed. "Yeah," I replied. "I should probably change, though." I lifted my dripping apron with my index finger and thumb.

"You can stay in your room if you want," he offered. "You look pretty tired."

"No way, this place would turn into a wreck if I'm not out here," I told him.

"I have a feeling it's going to be ruined no matter what," he added, nervously looking out the doorway at the two dwarves still in his pantry. I nodded my head to the side in agreement. "Go on ahead. I'll call you if I need you."

"Promise?" I held out my pinky finger with a raised eyebrow.

"I promise," Bilbo smiled, intertwining his pinky finger with mine.

The little _pinky promise_ thing we had been doing ever since a month after I became his maid, when he said that I could go to public school, he told me that he would pick me up as soon as we were let out. And I, having not yet met DJ and being scared beyond belief, asked him to make it a promise. I kind thought it was stupid, but he agreed right away, seeming to understand completely.

"Okay," I agreed. "Just let me grab my bow and arrows. I left them in the trunk and I need to redo the string."

Then the doorbell rang for the _third time._

"I'll get it this time," Bilbo made clear before I could say otherwise.

"Alright, alright," I said. "I just need to grab my stuff," I repeated as I got up from my seat. My bow and quiver were at the top of the pile when I opened the trunk in the hallway. I easily slung them over my shoulder, ignoring the confused look I got from Dwalin, and the approving one from Balin. Whether I'd eaten or not, I agreed that I needed to take a nap.

I was just about to enter my room when I heard something that made my heart stop for a second.

"Fili."

"And Kili."

"_At your service._"

"You must be Mister Boggins!"

I crept along the wall until I came to the corner, from which I peaked around to finally get a look at those two, the curiosity driving me crazy.

I hadn't exactly imagined what they'd look like very vividly, but as soon as I saw them, I concluded that they had grown up quite a bit, though they still acted a bit like children. The one that I assumed was Kili was wiping his boots on Bilbo's mother's glory box, while Fili was handing each and every one of his knives to Bilbo, who could clearly not hold them all on his own.

Once Bilbo had went back to close the door, and Fili had continued walking, presumably to the kitchen, I scurried over to Bilbo and helped him put the knives down.

"You need to learn to know when you need help," I told him before I walked back towards my bedroom. Then I noticed how four of _my _arrows were in Kili's quiver on his back. Without a second thought, I snatched them up. He spun around in confusion, fingering his quiver.

Then he saw me, soaking wet with beer, a bit of blue cheese on my nose and cheek, a bow and quiver on my back, and four arrows in my hand. I could tell that he thought I was odd at first sight without asking. I wasn't going to make him think otherwise, it saved time.

"Uh… Who are you?" he asked me, not bowing, or anything. I don't blame him; princes probably shouldn't bow to the help. His eyes kept looking back and forth between the arrows in my hand and the arrows in my quiver.

I looked straight into his brown eyes unwaveringly. "My name is Helena Paige, and I saved your princely butt earlier today," I said, bowing somewhat mockingly. I didn't stutter what so ever, visibly shocking Bilbo from the corner of my eye. My face must have looked harder than I might've wanted, as Kili looked a bit shocked as well, despite not even knowing me. But I was absolutely done with dwarves that day, and men in general. As soon as I straightened up, I walked back to my room, not needing to hear his name, or really wanting to for that matter.

"Well, she's a little spitfire, isn't she?" I heard Dwalin say.


	4. Chapter 4

There was a knocking on my door about ten minutes after I closed it. In that time I had already put on brown pants and a gray shirt, taken off my hat, and was knee deep in a book.

I got up and lifted up the little mail slot in the door. The only thing that I used it for was as a sort of sentry.

"Passwo–… Um, I mean, who is it?" I asked when I saw billowing gray robes and not Bilbo's patchwork one.

"A very old friend that I do believe your master, Bilbo, did not want you to see today."

I knew that voice anywhere, to say the least.

I dropped the mail slot, grabbed my hat and put it on, and opened the door.

"Gandalf?" I asked breathlessly.

"Last time I checked, that name still belongs to me," he answered, his beard shaking with laughter. He looked me up and down. "Well, you certainly have grown, my dear Helena–"

I hugged him without question, not being able to wait any longer.

"You've certainly gotten stronger, too," he laughed. He bent down to look at me. "Except for maybe your appearance, you haven't changed in the slightest."

"I certainly hope not," I fired back. "It's been long, Gandalf, much too long."

"I do believe that we can both agree on that, dear Helena," he smiled, putting his hand on my shoulder. "In that case, whatever are you doing in your room of all places?" Gandalf asked me worriedly.

"Reading, mostly. I had to replace my bow string," I answered, not exactly lying. "Why? Is something happening that I should know of?" I stood on my tiptoes, as if it would help my sight. "Besides the four dwarves in Bilbo's house?" I added.

"How about the eight more that have arrived?" he asked me.

I then had a coughing fit. "There––are––more?"

"Yes… and they have gotten quite comfortable–" If Gandalf had said anything more, I didn't hear it, as I then half-ran past him, down the hallway, and into the dining room, just in time to be present for an ale chugging contest, followed by a round of burps. I was appalled to say the least. Moments later, the now _twelve _dwarves slowly began to file out of the dining room, either looking for more food or deciding to wander around the hobbit-hole a bit. I ducked out behind a corner before any of them could see me.

I was wrong.

"The way you talked to me earlier was not exactly expected."

I jumped at the sound of Kili's voice. "Excuse me?" I asked breathlessly and shyly. He stood by me, a small smug smile on his face and a pipe in his hand.

"I said, _the way you talked to me earlier was not exactly expected,_" he repeated.

"Why?" I asked. "Do dwarves back home talk to you all delicately because you're a prince?"

"In comparison to you, yes," he answered. "But not unless they want something."

"Fair point," I admitted. "Now, if you'll excuse me…" I then ducked out towards one of the many closets of Bag End.

"Why do you keep doing that?" he asked, walking along side me.

"Why do I keep doing what?" I asked him as I grabbed a couple of rags and a bucket.

"Why do you keep walking away from me like you'd rather be somewhere else?" he explained. "You don't even know me and you already don't want to be near me."

"Alright," I sighed as I walked towards the kitchen, half-expecting Kili to follow me, which he did. "I don't know about you, but I've had a long day, and I'm just know starting to get a migraine."

"Well, up until we got here, I've been trekking across Middle Earth, and so I fail to see how you're day could be any worse," he replied.

"Try being proposed to. For the fifth time in a year. By the same _blockheaded twit_," I retorted.

"So, I'm guessing no means no with you, then? I'll add that to the list of things that I know about you. And by the way, the list is rather short."

In the time it took for us to exchange those sentences, I had already filled the bucket with water and we were standing in the foyer, where muddy boot-prints were displayed on the floorboards.

I sighed as I went down to my hands and knees, soaked a rag in the water, and rang it out. "Okay, then," I said as I started scrubbing the floor. "Five facts about Helena Paige: #1, I shot that bear earlier today."

Kili was now on his knees to look at me at eyelevel.

"#2, my name is Helena Paige."

"I figured," he chuckled as he reached for a rag.

"#3, I'm Mister Baggins's maid, therefore you don't have to help me," I stopped him by grabbing his hand. I then went back to work. "#4, I have been Mister Baggins's maid for… about fifteen years now. And #5, I know that the dwarf I am talking to right now is a prince, so I'd like it if you wouldn't tell anybody about the bear so that I am less likely to be questioned about it."

"Those are terrible facts," Kili said bluntly. "All I got out of that was your name, that you're a maid, you shoot, and you don't like to be questioned."

"That's about all that you need to know," I retorted. "I'd like to see you have better ones."

"You're on," he agreed as he leaned against the wall, folding one leg over the other. I rolled my eyes and kept scrubbing. "#1, my name is Kili."

"Yep, _real _original," I added.

"#2, I'm an archer, too. #3, I have an older brother named Fili. And #4, I recognize the fact that I am a prince, but that's not going to stop me from helping you," he finished as he grabbed a washcloth and soaked it before I could stop him.

"And, obviously, you can't count," I mumbled.

"Oh, no, I'm not finished yet," he waved a finger at me.

"You're impossible."

"Possibly."

"Come on, what's number five?"

"#5, I know that you're no fun."

My eyes were wide as my head shot up, my thoughts whirling. _Did I screw up this fast? What is wrong with me? Is he going to be like the others? _I cleared my throat instead of speaking my mind. "Elaborate."

"You're all work and no play," Kili explained to me. "Someone who is all work would be doing what you're doing right now. While someone who is all play would be singing and eating right about now."

Having finished cleaning, I stood up and grabbed the rag from his hands. "For the record, I can sing, and I would be eating right now if you all didn't just destroy the pantry, and also," I glared at him, "_I am fun_."

"No," he said following me. "See, _fun _isn't something that you _say _that you are, it's something you _prove _that you are."

"How?" I asked, turning around to look at him with my hands on my hips, just completely done with him and this conversation.

"Like… _this_," he answered as he caught a plate that was hurling through the air and tossed it through the nearest doorway, through which another dwarf caught and stacked it. When I turned and looked, I saw more dishes coming towards me. I ducked and screamed, covering my head with my hands.

I then heard Bilbo yell, "E–excuse me! That's my mother's West-Farthing Pottery! It's over a hundred years old!"

_Bilbo! _I wanted to yell. _Where are you when I need you?_

Then there was a rhythmic tapping and clanking of silverware on the table.

"And can you not do that? You'll blunt them," Bilbo added.

"Ooooh! You hear that, lads?" a dwarf with some sort of ear hat and mustache called out. "He says we'll blunt the knives!"

When I finally stood back up, dishes were being tossed across the hobbit-hole, and when I looked behind me… Kili was singing.

_**Blunt the knives, bend the forks!**_

Then, on the opposite side of me, the dwarf who I knew was Fili continued the song.

_**Smash the bottles, and burn the corks!**_

Then everyone together, including me, sang,

_**Chip the glasses, and crack the plates!**_

_**That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!**_

* * *

I don't particularly know what it was that made me sing then. I'm not sure if I was trying to prove to Kili that I could have fun. Or if I was just trying to go with it, just like everyone else seemed to be doing. But I know that something about the way Bilbo was running around worriedly, and how catchy the song was–some dwarves even pulled out and started playing their own personal instruments–made me just start laughing, since I didn't know the words. I'm also not a hundred percent sure how all of the dwarves knew the words to the song, as I'm pretty sure that it was made up on the spot.

By the time Bilbo had ran into the kitchen, seeing that the dishes were not broken and shattered as the song made him think, my stomach hurt from the laughter and tears were gathering in my eyes. I ended up being the last one to stop laughing when there was a knock at the door, not a ring of the doorbell.

"He is here…" Gandalf announced ominously from where he sat with his pipe half-in half-out of his mouth. He turned to me. "Dear Helena, do please get some food for our last guest, and something to drink, too," he said as he got up to go to the door.

I nodded, maid-sense taking over as I went to the stove, where _somebody _had made some soup in a pot. By the time I had ladled a good bowl full of soup and set it on the dining room table, all of the dwarves were out of the kitchen and standing in the foyer. I ignored the new deep voice as I drew another tankard of ale, filling it to the brim just like I did for the others. The barrel keg was actually almost empty, so I had to sneak into where I knew Bilbo had a smaller emergency barrel of bear, the location of which I will not tell you.

By the time I walked back to the dining room, the new guest was sitting at the head of the table and everyone else was at their own respective seating. Awkwardly, I placed the tankard on the table and edged backwards to the corner. The new guest nodded in silent response, not seeming to be one for conversation, or simply just figuring that I was a maid and acted the way any normal person would to a maid.

"_Helena!_" Bilbo whispered to me. "_I thought you were in your room!_"

"Yes, she was," Gandalf replied for me from the corner. "Then I went and got her. I figured that Bag End had seen better days, and, of course, I'm sure she'd ring your neck for not getting her out here for the meeting."

"What meeting?" Bilbo quickly asked.

"All in good time," he assured us. "Let Thorin eat, he's very tired."

I bowed my head as I ducked out to the kitchen, needing to put the dishes away and clean them up, should they need it. They were actually rather spotless after that little song the dwarves sang. Something told me that there would be no singing now that that _Thorin _was there.

He was a bit peculiar. When the conversation resumed, I could easily distinguish his voice among the rest, as I could with Kili's, since I'd had a rather frustrating conversation with him moments earlier, and was well accustomed to how it sounded.

Even so, the words were hard to understand from all the way in the kitchen. That is, until I heard Bilbo's voice quite clearly. "You're going on a quest?"

Then my lazy eavesdropping became intent listening. I silently tiptoed back to the archway of the dining room, just as Gandalf asked for more light. Seconds later, Bilbo was nudging past me with a candle in hand, his gaze mirroring mine. On the table was a hand-drawn map with runes written all across it.

"The Lonely Mountain," Bilbo read what was written in the common-tongue after Gandalf gave a brief description of the mountain.

"Aye," a redheaded dwarf said from his seat. "Oin has read the portents, and the portents say, _it is time._"

I ended up drifting off a bit, gazing at the drawing of a large pointy mountain with a dragon overtop of it, taking in every detail given on it. I didn't even hear any of the dwarves start to argue amongst themselves over whether Bilbo was a suitable burglar.

No; I didn't pay attention to anything being said until Gandalf stood up, a shadow surrounding him, and saying in a the darkest voice I'd ever heard him use, "_Enough! If I say that Bilbo Baggins and Helena Paige are burglars, then burglars they are!" _Everyone was stunned in their seats. Then the shadow diminished as Gandalf continued, much calmer than before, "Hobbits are remarkably light on their feet, in fact, they can pass unseen by most if they choose. And, while the dragon is accustomed to the smell of dwarf, the scent of two _hobbits_ is all but unknown to him." He then sat down and said to Thorin, "You must trust me on this."

"… _Two_ hobbits?" Thorin asked him.

"Oh, yes, of course," Gandalf replied, as if he finally remembered something. "Thorin son of Thrain, this is Helena Paige, maid of Bilbo Baggins," he introduced, gesturing to wide-eyed me. "She is especially good at bow and arrows, I've seen her, and you could always use another healer, which she is."

"Gandalf, I will not have any of my men take extra care to protect a girl in times of peril," Thorin made clear to him. "She will be nothing but a nuisance to us."

"And I don't expect you to. She can take care of herself quite fine, and I have no doubt that she will do her fair share of protecting Mister Baggins," he replied. "I repeat, you must trust on this."

Thorin sighed–or maybe groaned–as he looked at through the corner of his eye. "Fine," he finally answered. "We'll do it your way. Give them the contract," he instructed Balin.

I was barely aware that Balin had given Bilbo the contract, though the words _funeral arrangements_ did poke through the blur. Instead, I was staring with wide green eyes at Gandalf, who had a smug sort of smile on his face. He then waved his pipe, as if to tell me to go look at the contract I would soon be signing. I quickly turned around just as Bilbo turned from the contract to the dwarves, having just read the word _incineration._

"Oh, aye," the dwarf with the hat agreed. "He'll melt the flesh off your bones in the blink of an eye."

After bending over a bit, Bilbo quickly announced that he was feeling like he was about to faint.

"Think, furnace with wings," the dwarf comforted him.

"I–I need some air," Bilbo stuttered as I tried to get him to breathe, having known what to do since he'd fainted a total of fourteen times before the dwarves came along.

Then that same dwarf with a hat began talking him through the process of being burned to death by a dragon. "Flash of light, searing pain–and POOF! You're nothing more than a pile of ash!"

Bilbo then stood straight, as if he'd recovered, or like nothing had happened at all. He looked at me, said, "Nope," and fell to the ground.

I swore, _loudly_, as I grabbed the nearest tankard of ale and splashed the entire thing on Bilbo, it taking him only a moment to wake up, gasping for air. "No, no, no, you stay down," I ordered as I grabbed him from under his arms and started dragging him to his study. I saw Kili get up, probably to help me, but Thorin stopped him. So, I dragged Bilbo to his study by myself, with Gandalf slowly following in my wake.

* * *

As soon as I got him into a chair, I scurried back out to get him some tea. I could always brew up some chamomile tea in record time. When I made it back to the study, I stopped before knocking on the doorframe, wanting to have just a single moment of peace that day. I just wanted to breathe, as I found that I wasn't doing enough with the dwarves in the hobbit-hole. Bilbo and Gandalf were having a conversation about the quest at hand, and how Bilbo would not and could not go, despite Gandalf's words.

"I can't just go running off into the blue!" Bilbo argued. "I am a Baggins–– of Bag End!" I was about to ask him what he meant by that when Gandalf spoke.

"You are also a Took," Gandalf added.

Bilbo threw his head back, as if he was officially giving up, not expecting my words what so ever.

"_WHAT?_" I practically screamed. "Bilbo… You're a Took?" My voice had gotten stuck in my throat, making it jump up an octave.

"Yes, yes, my dear Helena," Gandalf soothed me, acting as though he'd known I was there all along. "Bilbo Baggins does indeed have the blood of a Took on his mother's side. I would have thought you'd known by now, you are 26 years of age, are you not?"

I then turned to Bilbo, my fiercest glare possible set in my eyes. "So… _Baggins=good, Took=bad_? What was that? _What _do you have against Took's?_ What_ is so wrong with Took's? Why were you so wary of my _best friend_ being a Took? Would you have wanted me to befriend a _Baggins_? Would you have wanted me to _marry_ a Baggins? Is _that_ why you don't like Willard Goodbody–?"

Then the doorbell rang yet again, followed by a series of urgent pounds on the door. By that time, tears were streaming down my face and my voice was sore. I quickly wiped my cheeks, mumbled, "I'll get it," and walked out of the study.

As I walked to the door, I ignored Kili as he followed me, being mostly focused on steadying my breathing.

"You okay?" he asked me softly.

I stopped, took in a deep breath, and then exhaled it. I turned to him. "Have you been lied to–or just not told about something–and for whatever stupid reason, it just drove you crazy?" I asked him in reply, not caring what I said to him. _I've got nothing to lose_, I concluded.

"I think we all ha–"

"HELENA! PLEASE, OPEN THE DOOR!"

I slowly turned back around nervously, it taking a moment for everything to come together.

"DJ?" I whispered at first. I then continued to walk to the door, my footsteps slowly becoming faster until I was sprinting down the halls of Bag End. "DJ, what's wrong?" I yelled as I got closer.

When I made it to the door, I opened it as fast as I could. DJ practically fell into the foyer, though she still closed the door before I could even think to.

"DJ, what's that?" I asked, pointing at her left eye. It was all black and a little swollen.

It took her a moment to regain enough breath for her sentence. "Anne Bracegirdle–"

"You're kidding me!" I exclaimed. "_Anne Bracegirdle _did that? It's been almost a year since she's last punched you!"

"Uh, hello," Fili said a bit awkwardly. When I looked, I found him and Kili standing not too far from us.

"Helena, who's that?" DJ asked me, clearly scared beyond words.

"Um… Dwarves," I answered.

"Oh! _Dwarves_ live in _Ered Luin_. That's what I was trying to think of!" she exclaimed in reply.

And then she fainted.


	5. Chapter 5

_Bilbo's begging to get me into a higher-level class had eventually succeeded. So, the schoolteacher, Mrs. Camilla Proudfoot, introduced me to the older, bigger class that next Monday. "This is our new student, Helena Paige Baggins," she announced gingerly to the class full of twelve-year-old hobbits, as opposed to the class of eleven-year-old hobbits I had been in for about a month. "She's a rather sharp knife–which means…? Anyone? Edward?"_

_ "She could kill us at any given moment?" the dark haired boy guessed, earning himself some childish giggles._

_ "No," Mrs. Proudfoot said sternly. "Anne?"_

_ "She could cut us if we touch her?" the brunette girl guessed, trying and failing to suppress a high-pitched laugh. The class thought that was rather funny, too._

_ "Wrong again," Mrs. Proudfoot replied, not wanting the antics to continue. "Come on, you all know this; we went over that idiom just the other day! Daisy Jane?" she called on with a point of her finger._

_ "It means that she's really smart," the blonde girl answered, sending a light glare to Edward and Anne._

_ "Yes! Thank you, Daisy Jane!" Mrs. Proudfoot exclaimed. "Helena, how about you go sit next to her?" She pointed me in the direction of the empty desk next to the hobbit-girl. "Now, class please turn to page 32 in your math books," she instructed as she handed me a math book, and waved me along to my seat._

_ As soon as I sat down, Daisy Jane set her book up on her desk, hiding her face, and did the same to mine, hiding my face as well. "Quickly. Listen," she instructed me in a whisper. "If you want to survive in this classroom, stick to me, got that?" I quickly nodded, having no idea what else to do. "Okay, good. Also, stay away from–among the other stupid-heads–Reginald Took–he's my cousin, gigantic stupid-head, Anne Bracegirdle–she gives _stupid-head_ a new meaning, Edward Brandybuck –he's not particularly stupid, or mean, but just don't get involved with him, you'll get into more trouble than you'll know how to deal with, and Willard Goodbody–he's the womanizer of the class. Just stay away from him if you know it's good for you." She pointed at each of the children as she spoke of them._

_ I nodded slowly, processing all the information, and contemplating whether or not _she _was someone I should be a friend with._

_ "Oh, and I'm Daisy Jane, you can trust me," she introduced herself, holding out her hand to shake. "Or you can call me DJ, I like DJ, DJ is nice."_

_ I slowly shook her hand, half expecting her to explode with the interaction; she was so jumpy and energetic. "I'm Helena–"_

_ The books acting as our shield were pulled away. "What are you two doing?" Mrs. Proudfoot asked us. "Talking during class, that's what you're doing," she said before DJ could explain. "Helena, I'm leaving you with a warning, since you're not used to this class yet. But, _you_, Daisy Jane," she said to her. "I expect more from you. One more slip up and I'm talking to you're parents."_

_ DJ stuck her tongue out at Mrs. Proudfoot as she walked back to the front of the classroom._

_ By the time we were let out of school, everyone–except DJ–was calling me No Name, having remembered me from all of the rumors from three months prior._

_ "Hey, No Name, can you do my homework since you're so smart?"_

_ "Where did Mr. Baggins pick you up from, No Name?"_

_ "What makes _you_ so special, No Name?"_

_ "How are you so smart, No Name? I bet you couldn't even tell me what the answers to our homework are!"_

_ "How come you're so quiet, No Name? Is it because you're _scared_ of us?"_

_ I'm not sure which insult triggered it exactly, but at some point, I just plain screamed, "Shut up, you–"_ swear _"–heads!" I then froze with wide green eyes, not knowing where it was that I heard that word before._

_ The bullies were surprised, but not exactly intimidated. "Looks like No Name's a little spitfire," one of them said. "Not only does she not have a name, but she's got a temper, too. What do you have to say about that, Unnamed Spitfire?" he asked as he shoved me into a mud puddle._

_ "Edward, Anne, Reginald, Willard!" Mrs. Proudfoot shouted at them, having noticed the entire incident from the front step of the school building. "In my office, now!" Without another word said, they all ran back to the school building. "And, you, No Name–I mean, Helena," she pointed at me. "Go home, now. One more slip up and I'll have a talk with Mr. Baggins!" She then turned back around to deal with the bullies._

_ "Come on," DJ–who had warned me not to say anything when they started their taunting–said as she helped me up from the mud._

_ She then proceeded to walk me back to Bag End, seeming quite shocked when I told her where I lived/worked. "I mean, you said you were a Baggins," she explained. "I just didn't think you were a _Baggins_."_

_ When he opened the door, Bilbo looked a bit befuddled for two reasons: mud was coating my new yellow dress, and a young hobbit-girl that he didn't know was standing on his front door step. "H–Helena, are you okay?" he asked nervously, bending down to hold my face in his hands, and wiping off a bit of mud from my cheek with his thumb._

_ "Just some bullies," DJ explained to him before I could._

_ "And, who are you?" he asked DJ, looking her up and down, accusation seeping into his tone when he saw that her dress was clean._

_ "Daisy Jane Took, Mister Baggins," she introduced herself with a salute, "daughter of a baker, and self-appointed protector and friend of Helena Paige Baggins."_

_ "Uh-huh," Bilbo nodded slowly. "I see… Hurry along, Miss Took, your help is much appreciated." It took her a moment of convincing, but DJ then scurried down the path and back to her own hobbit-hole._

_ Bilbo ushered me inside immediately. "Now, before you take a bath and wash your clothes, I want to make something clear," he said. He kneeled down to look at me at eyelevel. "Don't let this change your opinion of your friend, but just keep this in mind," he continued. "_Baggins=good, Took=bad_, got that?"_

_ I quickly nodded._

_ "Good," he smiled, pulling me into a hug. I didn't know that I had any stored up tears, but they spilled then. "It's alright, it'll be alright," he soothed me. "What do you want to eat for supper?" he asked me, pulling away to look at me. "We can have whatever you want."_

_ "Can we have some strawberry cake?" I asked shyly, picking at my fingernails a bit._

_ "Of course," Bilbo smiled at me. "Now, go take a bath and change your clothes–you can even jump into PJ's if you want–I'll start the cake. Oh–and pick out a book for tonight. I bet we can squeeze in two chapters tonight."_

_ I nodded again and scurried down the hallway to the bathroom._

"Who is she?" Fili asked me as I tucked DJ into my bed.

"Daisy Jane Took, my best friend, thank you very much," I answered.

"What about who punched her?" Kili asked. "Does that happen often?"

"Anne Bracegirdle," I answered, looking out the window. "We haven't talked to her in a while, but back when we would, this happened_ a_ _lot_." I closed the curtains. "This probably has to do with when I kneed Willard Goodbody in the gut earlier today, after I shot that bear, she's madly in love with him. She'll deny it, but she is. Oh, gosh, this is my fault…" I scratched the top of my head through my blue hat, guilt prickling my stomach.

"Wait–you shot the bear?" Fili asked.

"Yep," I answered bluntly, holding up my quiver for him to see.

"Shouldn't we try to rouse her?" Kili asked.

"No, Bilbo fainted from anxiety, DJ fainted from exhaustion–and a bit of anxiety," I answered, looking at her sleeping form. "So, unless we need her for something, I'd advise you to let her rest," I explained as I pulled up a chair and grabbed the book I'd been reading before Gandalf fetched me. "She'll only wake up to certain words–and I'm the only one who knows them–"

"_ACHOO!_" she screeched as she woke up and sat straight up in my bed.

"Or she'll wake herself up," I added. _Well, there go my plans, _I thought as I placed the book on the table. I turned to DJ. "Hey, DJ, how are you feeling?"

She yawned and wiped her nose with her elbow, looking at me with sleepy eyes. "I had… the strangest dream. Anne Bracegirdle punched me in the face, and then I ran to Bag End. And then–this is the weird part–there were these two men in the front hallway. One was blonde and the other was a brunette. The blonde one was kind of cute, if you ask me. And you said that they were dwarves–why are you laughing?" she asked.

I contained myself, though an involuntary grin stayed on my face. "Okay, well, Anne Bracegirdle _did _punch you. And you _did _run all the way to Bag End. And, uh, there _are _dwarves in here," I explained, trying so hard not to laugh as I pointed at Fili and Kili, who were standing on the other side of the bed. Kili had a small smile on his face ever since DJ mentioned Fili, while his brother just stood there, looking uncomfortable at the idea.

Slowly, she turned around, her blue eyes wide. "Hi…" she said nervously.

Kili gave a small wave as he elbowed his brother.

"Hey…" Fili said, just about as nervously.

Not taking her eyes off them, she asked me, "What are they doing here?"

I looked to Kili and mouthed, _Can I?_

Carefully, he shook his head, _No._

"They're travelers," I answered, not exactly lying. "They're the ones that I saw when I shot the bear. They're so dimwitted that they got lost, and Bilbo's letting them spend the night to rest."

DJ turned to me with a sarcastic look on her face. "No, what are they doing in your bedroom?" she clarified.

"We were assisting the lady Helena in carrying you when you fainted, miss Daisy Jane," Fili spoke up. _Yep, totally a prince_, I concluded from how he talked.

"You carried me?" she asked him, raising her eyebrows.

"Just your feet!" he nearly exclaimed, cheeks going reddish.

"I held the door, Fili held your feet, and Helena carried you by the arms," Kili explained, looking smugly at his brother.

"Oh… Okay," DJ nodded awkwardly.

"Boy! It's getting late!" I changed the subject, seeing where this was going–or rather, where it should be going. "I have to show Master Kili to his room, now," I said as I grabbed his arm and pulled him through the door.

"Uh… What about my room?" Fili asked.

"Oh, yours isn't ready yet," I said a bit hysterically. "You just stay… _right_ there, and I'll get you when it's ready." I then walked out, dragging Kili by his arm, and purposefully leaving the door ajar.

"Well, aren't we little matchmakers," Kili smiled.

"Yes, yes, now shut up," I whispered as I peaked around the corner of the hallway. "Okay, they're talking, but I can't really hear what their saying," I softly announced, sliding down the wall to the floor in defeat.

"So… She's your best friend?" Kili asked me as he sat down next to me.

I nodded.

"How long have you known her?"

"Fifteen years." I smiled and cringed at the memory. "Well, we became actual _best friends_ when we spit-shook our hands the day after we met."

"_Spit-shook?_" he queried.

"It's like a pinky swear, only more extreme," I explained. "It's when two people spit on their hands, and then shake hands."

"I kind of thought you were sisters when she came in," he said.

"Lots of hobbits do," I admitted. "Which kind of made Willard Goodbody start to think that we were a package deal. He's proposed to the two of us four times."

"You said five times," he reminded me.

"Yeah, just today he proposed to just me," I sighed, feeling sleep begin to take me. "I kneed him. It was a no, to say the least. Which probably made Anne Bracegirdle go off her rocker and punch DJ, since I'm her friend, and all… Which reminds me," I added, sitting up. "Ground rules."

Kili looked at me confusedly. "_Ground rules?_"

"Yes," I nodded like it was the simplest thing in the world. "If Fili hurts DJ, or tries_ anything_, I'll kill him, then I might just kill you for fun."

"Sounds fair," he agreed, leaning back on the wall. "Though, I can't exactly guarantee it'll last. My uncle's pretty adamant that we both, especially Fili, marry a _dwarf_ maid."

I swore in frustration, as I looked back at the two, who seemed to be rather happy talking to each other, whatever it was that they were talking _about_.

Kili laughed.

"What's so funny?" I asked him, turning around with a light glare.

"Oh, nothing," he assured me. "I was just thinking about how the first thing that Uncle heard you say was–"

"Yeah, yeah, I know what I said, I get it," I waved him off, not wanting think about the swear that had escaped my lips. "You keep saying _Uncle_, which one's your uncle?"

"Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, son of Thror, and so on and so forth," he explained. "King Under the Mountain."

I whistled lowly. "That's some family you've got there," I admitted.

"Yeah, and then I've got my mother and Fili, and… actually, most everybody here is distant family. Not _everybody_, but I can never remember it all," he added.

"I can only imagine the family reunions–" I laughed, but was cut off by low humming. When I looked at Kili, I saw that he was frozen. He then swiftly turned to me.

"You said you can sing, right?" he asked. "So, in that case, you like music, right?"

I nodded slowly, not really sure where he was going with this. Kili then grabbed my hand and hauled me up to my feet, pulling me along into the sitting room where all of the other dwarves, save Fili, were sitting around the fire, humming. Then, Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain, began to sing, better than I thought he could, really.

_**Far over the misty mountains cold**_

_**To dungeons deep, and caverns old**_

_**We must away, ere break of day,**_

_**To find our long forgotten gold.**_

_**The pines were roaring on the height,**_

_**The winds were moaning in the night.**_

_**The fire was red, it flaming spread;**_

_**The trees like torches, blazed with light.**_

__By the time the song had ended, there was a hand on my shoulder. When I looked, it was Gandalf.

"I do believe that Bilbo would appreciate a word with you, dear Helena," he told me gingerly.

I nodded and made my way to the study. I was actually kind of glad to leave the sitting room. For whatever reason, I really hated the smell of smoke, and most of the dwarves were smoking their pipes. And I kind of felt the need to apologize to Bilbo after my little blow up. It just felt right to apologize.

When I found Bilbo, he was still sitting in his chair and had drunken all of the tea that I had brought him. "Bilbo?"

His head whipped around to look at me. He nodded towards a seat across from him. Silently, I walked over to and sat down in the armchair.

"I heard DJ come in," he said.

I nodded in reply.

"Is she alright?" he asked.

I nodded in answer.

"No, don't you start with your silence," he stopped me.

"Okay…" I looked down at my hairy feet.

"So, what do you think of this?" Bilbo held up the contract. "If you could, would you go on this… _adventure?_"

"Why not?" I answered with a soft smile.

"You can not be serious," he said. "You can not seriously want to throw yourself into eminent danger."

"What about you, Bilbo?" I asked him. "Don't you want to go?"

"Helena, I just can't," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I just can't leave Bag End, I can't just leave everything to collect dust. Anybody could show up and take anything they want."

"We could leave DJ," I suggested. "She's been talking about how she wants her own place to stay, and she never minds doing chores! I swear, she is the most trustworthy hobbit in the Shire!"

"Does she know that there are dwarves here?" he asked quickly, lowering his voice to a whisper.

"Not exactly," I replied, biting the side of my bottom lip. "I told her that there's only two here, she hasn't left my room." Bilbo looked unsurely at me. "Bilbo, whether or not you don't feel comfortable leaving Bag End with a Took, I'm going on this quest!" I made clear. "And it's only right that you come, too."

"What good would two hobbits do on this endeavor, anyway?" he asked, as if he was using anything as an excuse to not go.

"Gandalf said it himself, we can be silent on our feet, and the dragon doesn't know what we smell like."

"Why are you just so set on going? You didn't look too excited about it when you were first told about it. How long have you really thought about this?"

"Because, Bilbo… I was shocked, that's all. And besides, how often are we going to get the opportunity to go on _an adventure _of all things?" I asked him, breathless from the idea. "And also, you named me after a character in a book who went on an adventure; what did you expect?" I asked him with raised eyebrows. "And I've had plenty of time to think about going on an adventure before these dwarves even showed up. So, whether you're going or not, I am."

"No, you are not, young lady!" he stopped me. "You could very well kill yourself out there, and Thorin said that he wasn't taking any care to protect you, like I'd rather have happen. You're going to stay here and live the safe life of a Baggins and not get into _any_ adventures."

My eyes were wide and my mouth was hanging open, feeling dry. I was terrified. "… You_ want _me to be cooped up in Bag End, where nothing will hurt me? You _want _me to get married, to a man who will protect me? You _want _me to have children, and teach them about the dangers of leaving the Shire? You _want _to do all of that? _No_," I said sternly."I'm not doing that. I can't do that. I'm just not a tiny child who you have to protect anymore, and I know that that kind of life is not going to be mine."

I got up and walked to the doorway before he could say anything. Bilbo looked visibly stunned by all that I said. I stopped before I exited the room. "I'm sorry, Bilbo," I said, my voice breaking. Tears then slowly started to stream down my face. "I'm sorry that you had to take me in. I'm sorry that you wasted fifteen years of your life on me. I'm sorry for everything I've said to you. And I'm sorry for every time you've been angry with me. And I'm sorry for going against your wishes and going on the quest. But I'm not sorry that I just can't live like that."

Then I walked out of the room, before I could do anymore damage.

"You did the right thing, you know," Kili said when he found me. I was lightly hitting my head against the wall, asking myself what I'd done.

I jumped at the sound of his voice. "What is it with you?" I asked him. "Why do you just have yourself glued to me?"

"I get bored," he shrugged his shoulders. "I'm reckless. I do stuff. It's simple. Anyway, like I said, you did the right thing."

"Did I?" I asked him. "Did I, really? I might as well have just told him that I don't want anything to do with him. It would've taken less air." I held my arms by the elbows. "I don't know… I mean, maybe I can still back out of it. Maybe if I apologize, and I don't go, maybe he'll forgive me."

"Oh, dear Mahal, you're insane," Kili mumbled, running his hand through his hair. "No. You are going on the quest. It'll be good for you," he almost ordered, pointing his finger at me.

"Yeah, and Bilbo will disown me," I added.

"What? Do hobbits not give their servants any free will?" he asked incredulously.

"You obviously don't know anything about hobbits…" I said. "I was eleven-years-old when I became Bilbo's maid; I was a kid," I explained sternly, trying to make sure this got through his thick-skulled head. "I'm twenty-six right now, I can't even drink yet, and he has been like a father to me–_and I just blew him off!_"

"He'll come back around," he assured me. "Uncle always does."

"_Thanks,_" I said sarcastically. "_I feel so assured, now. _In case you haven't noticed, Bilbo and Thorin aren't exactly alike. He probably won't anyhow, people generally don't like me…" I said as I sat down with the wall to my back. "And I'm not expecting you to pity me, so you can go ahead and say what you want."

"That is _so_ a lie!" Kili practically laughed at me. He sat down as he started to list, "Okay, Master Gandalf likes you, DJ likes you–of course, Mister Balin seems to think you're nice, Fili definitely doesn't hate you–he's probably a bit grateful that you left him with DJ, Dwalin thinks you're at least a decent maid, Nori likes how sneaky you are, Ori likes you're hat, Bofur sure does like your little spitfire attitude, Bifur–okay, I'm _pretty sure_ he said that he thought it was funny when you swore–"

"Okay, okay, I get it," I laughed, forgetting everything for a split second.

"You didn't let me finish!" he exclaimed playfully. He then continued. "And, most importantly, _I _like you."

I giggled. "_Geez, Kili_, if I didn't like you, too, I'd wipe that stupid grin right off your face!"

"So, do you think you're coming?" he asked me.

"…Yeah, I think so," I nodded nervously. "Why do I feel like I'm going to regret this?"

"That's nonsense, of course you won't," he assured me.


	6. Chapter 6

For whatever reason, even though I was well accustomed to waking up early–being a maid and all–I still wasn't awake before the dwarves left.

And because of this, I was convinced that what had happened the night before was a complete dream–nothing more. This made me raise two main questions: _If it was a dream, then why was I sleeping on the floor? _And, _Where did I get this blanket? _Draped across my body was a blue fur-lined blanket.

I nodded slowly, looking around, as if I was still dreaming and dwarves would jump out at me from nowhere. Instead, there were none. Not knowing what to do with the blanket, I carried it with me as I walked around the hobbit-hole. When I found nothing, I started to make my way to my room, shrugging off the mystery of the blanket.

And in my bed laid DJ, fast asleep with a soft and content smile on her pale face. A part of me was even more confused by this new revelation. Sure, we'd had plenty of sleep overs–when I didn't have any chores to do–and I'd let her take my bed all of those times, but if the events of the night before were a dream–when did I let her in? And, in that case, who _the heck_ gave her a black eye?

_It was real_, I finally realized. _It was _all_ real- the quest, Gandalf, Fili, Kili… everything. _Anne Bracegirdle _did _punch DJ. I _was _invited to go on a quest… And I _did _blow up at Bilbo–not once, but twice.

I quickly took a closer look at the 'blanket' I was carrying, finally recognizing it as Kili's cloak… jacket… thing.

I was then torn between waking DJ up, and finding Bilbo. If I woke DJ up, chances were she might help me straighten out my addled mind, and _maybe_ tell me what she and Fili were talking about the night before. But it was none of my business, I admitted upon thinking it through. And if I looked for Bilbo, chances were–if I had indeed missed the dwarves before they went on their way–he might forgive me. Or maybe he'd changed his mind about the quest!

I then took to looking for Bilbo. As much as I wanted to talk to DJ, I had a tiny, hopeful feeling that if I did go on the quest, I would be able to talk to Fili himself– And probably scare the living daylights out of him– And accidentally ruin all chances of him and DJ being together. _Okay, maybe I shouldn't bring that up for a while,_ I thought as I dashed through the halls in search of my master.

"Hello?" The call resonated down the hallway into my ears, instantly making me feel relieved.

"Bilbo!" I called back as I ran in his direction. When he caught sight of me, he dropped the contract that had been in his hands and pulled me into a hug. "But… Aren't you mad at me?" I asked, my voice muffled by his shirt.

"I can never stay angry at you for long," he said, squeezing me tighter, emanating the hugs he'd give me after someone had picked on me when I was a tween. Staying in arm's reach of me, he picked the contract back up from the floor and blew off some of the dust. He looked down to where he would have to sign and sighed. "Helena, where's the pen?" he asked me, eyes still on the paper.

I shrieked happily as I ran to go grab it from his study. I was still bouncing on the balls of my feet as I handed it to him.

Bilbo signed his full name and then handed the pen and contract to me. I could tell that he was a bit hesitant about the idea, but his eyes were steady. Nodding gratefully, I signed _Helena Paige Baggins, maid of Bilbo Baggins _under his name.

Then it was done. We had signed up for a quest–_an adventure!_

Bilbo and I looked at each other. "_Now what?_" we asked at the same time.

"_Pack!_" we concluded, also at the same time. We then ran in opposite directions, to our own rooms.

When I made it back to my room, DJ was still asleep. After taking a moment to marvel at her for a moment, I quickly started to pack and get dressed. As I got dressed, I kept thinking about how much Lobelia would scold me for wearing pants and a shirt in the presence of several men. "Have you no modesty, girl?" she'd probably say. Looking at myself in the bathroom mirror in my hunting clothes–consisting of my long sleeved green shirt and tan colored pants–I thought to myself, _Eat your heart out, Lobelia._

As I slung my bow and quiver and my backpack over my shoulder I caught sight of DJ stirring slightly in her sleep, her nose twitching and her eyes moving underneath their lids. Not sure what to do, I quickly sang her back to sleep.

_**Far over the misty mountains cold**_

_**To dungeons deep, and caverns old**_

_**We must away, ere break of day**_

_**To find our long forgotten gold.**_

I couldn't remember the entire song for the life of me. And I knew plenty of other songs, I just couldn't think of any of them at that moment.

Not wanting to leave DJ without a proper goodbye, I grabbed a pencil and paper from my bedside table drawer. I quickly scribbled down, _I'm sorry that we left you, but Bilbo and I have to go somewhere. I'm not sure when we'll be back. Just lock up Bag End when you leave, the keys should be on the kitchen counter. And, Bilbo's a bit nervous about leaving Bag End, so if you could check up on it every once in a while–just to make sure no one's broken in–that would be great. Thanks and sorry about leaving on such short notice, Helena._

I folded it up and placed it on the bedside table, just then noticing that there was yet another note addressed to _Miss Daisy Jane Took_.

_Fili_, I concluded. As much as I wanted to look at the letter, I didn't and hurried to the main hallway where Bilbo would be waiting. I trusted the fact that this dwarf was a prince and would treat her with respect… Or whatever it is that princes do.

Bilbo was a few minutes behind me, so I used that time to grab _the Journey: a Hobbit's Tale_, neatly tuck my hair into my hat, and fold up Kili's jacket to give to him later. Only _after_ I did all of those things did Bilbo show up. He was huffing and puffing as he scurried in, a gigantic bag on his back, overflowing with who knows what. "Whoa," I mused. "Are you sure you didn't forget anything?"

"Yes, I'm quite sure," he said as he opened the door. Bilbo stared at the garden path that lead down to the road which would take us east which would bring us to the company of dwarves that we would be joining. He hesitantly took a step onto the porch. I handed him the contract and he smiled as he took it–

And then he promptly started running down the path, then down the road. For a second, I was dumbfounded by how fast he was running, and then I quickly closed the door to Bag End and ran after him. It made me feel like I was a child again, running like that with the sun warming my face. We were jumping over fences and produce, and taking very interesting short cuts–nothing and nobody was going to slow us down.

When we reached the outskirts of Hobbiton, a local farmer whose name I could never remember called to us, "Mister Baggins, where are you off to?"

To which, Bilbo hurriedly replied, "Can't talk now, already late!"

"Late for what?" the farmer asked.

"WE'RE GOING ON AN ADVENTURE!" we yelled in unison.

* * *

The moment a group of ponies and the horse of a wizard came into view, we started to shout at the top of our lungs, "WAIT! WAIT! WAIT FOR US!"

Everyone then turned around in varying degrees of happy-surprise and annoyed-shock.

"We signed it," Bilbo announced as he handed the contract to Balin, while I was too preoccupied in regaining my breath and steadying my heart rate. _That _was why I hadn't run like that since I was a child.

Balin smiled as he accepted the contract and took out his eyeglass. "Everything appears to be in order," he agreed. "Welcome, Master Baggins and Miss Helena, to the Company of Thorin Oakenshield." He winked at us as cheers rang out throughout the group.

"Get them a pony," Thorin ordered, who was looking quite peeved when we arrived. He didn't stop to wait for us as he continued on his brown pony.

While Bilbo started to protest the idea of riding a pony, I started to walk down the rows of dwarves on their ponies, not being scared of the animals at all. I had never ridden one, but I couldn't see why I should be scared of them like Bilbo was. Admittedly, the teeth were a bit bigger and chompy-er looking than I would have wanted, but I shrugged it off… more or less.

Instead of climbing onto the pony that Bilbo was forcibly lifted onto, I myself was unceremoniously hauled atop a dark brown pony. A part of me thought that I was assaulted, but then I thought, _who else would do this?_

"Is this going to happen often, Kili?" I asked him, a bit annoyed.

"Not unless you know how to get on and off a pony," he answered me with a smirk.

"Well, you may have to show me," I admitted. "I've never ridden one of these things before–"

The pony whinnied slightly.

"Minty doesn't like to be called a thing," Kili informed me.

"Oh, _of course _you named it Minty," I said.

Minty neighed again.

"She doesn't like to be called _it _either," he added. "You need to learn your pony lingo."

"Sorry, didn't pack a book about ponies," I said with a small roll of my eyes. "Which reminds me," I added as I took off my bag and pulled out his jacket. "Keep track of where you leave your things, man," I said as I handed it to him.

"See, that is where you are wrong yet again," he said as he accepted it. "I left it there on purpose."

I cleared my throat, my cheeks feeling a bit warm. "Well, thanks, but geez, you would have given yourself a cold without it out here," I half-smiled half-scolded. "It's going to be freezing when we stop for the night."

"Nah, Fili's got a coat or two to spare," Kili said, eyeing his brother. "Speaking of which," he changed the subject, smirking at his brother. "How did you sleep last night, brother?"

I rested my chin on my fist innocently. "Yes! In fact, how was your entire night? We didn't see you after DJ showed up," I added.

Fili looked at the sky like he was either about to commit suicide or homicide while the dwarves in close proximity started snickering. A moment later, Kili and I were bursting our laughing. Fili then punched his brother, hard and deliberate.

"Ow! What was that for?" Kili asked.

"Because," Fili mumbled as he nodded towards their uncle, who hadn't noticed us yet.

"Oh… Dear, Mahal, I forgot," Kili said as he scratched his chin.

I, too, had forgotten about Kili's words until then. _"My uncle's pretty adamant that we both, especially Fili, marry a _dwarf_ maid," _he'd said the night before.

I cast my eyes down as I said, "Sorry, Fili–" My head shot straight up. "Wait, did you tell her?"

"No way," he said quickly. "Why, did she ask?"

"No," I answered. "She was still asleep when we left."

"_Asleep?_" Fili and Kili asked at the same time.

"Yeah, she almost woke up, but she was fast asleep," I explained, not mentioning the note, for means of their own privacy.

They brothers sighed as they focused on the road again.

"Does stuff like that happen a lot?" I asked then nervously.

"If you're asking if Fili falls in love a lot, the answer is _all the time_," Kili answered cheekily.

"I do not! You're talking about yourself!" his older brother corrected him…

The entirety of the day was spent like that: the asking of questions, the acquiring of answers, and the occasional sibling argument. You could tell that Fili and Kili loved each other from the way that they argued. They'd argue about everyday things, but they never appeared to actually be mad–they'd even have a smile on their faces.

And they'd try to include me in all of their conversations, especially after noticing how quiet I could get. Often I'd have to ask what they were talking about, since I was mostly preoccupied with taking in our surroundings and trying to listen to what Gandalf was saying to Bilbo, and then they'd fill me in, and I'd give my opinion.

It was a rather simple system.

And eventually, as I got rather bored with just sitting on the pony–my butt was numb after an hour or two of riding–I pulled out _the Journey: a Hobbit's Tale_ and started reading. It was hard to tell, since I wasn't paying attention to them, but I swore that Fili and Kili quieted down a bit at the sight of my book.

_Quiet _was not in their nature, so that slightly shocked me then, and when I woke up in the middle of the night. They were both on watch, and at the sight of me jolting awake, they seemed ready to attack anything that dared to come near our camp.

"You okay?" Fili asked me.

I walked shakily over to the fire, my heart racing. "Yeah…" I answered breathlessly. "Just a bad dream." I then started to rub my hands together over the fire. Then I walked back to where I'd been sleeping and grabbed my pack, pulling out _the Journey: a Hobbit's Tale _and walking back to my spot by the fire. I coughed into my arm at the smell of the smoke rising from the fire and from Fili and Kili's pipes and started reading.

It took about ten minutes for Bilbo to get up and walk around. I had noticed that he hadn't been sleeping, being disgusted by how one of the dwarves–whom I then knew was named Bombur–was blowing moths in and out of his mouth with his snoring. It wasn't pleasant to look at, but I had managed to ignore it.

Bilbo stretched and walked over to his pony, secretly feeding her an apple. I smirked and went back to reading–

A high-pitched shriek echoed into the camp, making the four of us turned our heads.

"What was that?" Bilbo quickly asked, his eyes darting from me to the brothers and back and forth.

"Orcs," Kili stated, his voice lacking any sort of animation that it normally had.

"_Orcs?_" Bilbo asked as he scurried to get closer to the light of the fire, carefully stepping over a dwarf or two.

I looked at Fili slowly as he continued where his brother left off. "Throat cutters," he added. "There'll be dozens of them out there."

My eyebrows knitted together in confusion… and maybe a bit of fear. "They strike in the wee small hours when everyone's asleep," Kili explained. "Quick and quiet, no screams, just lots of blood."

Bilbo turned back around to look into the distance frightfully while the two princes snickered to themselves.

Kili abruptly stopped laughing when he caught sight of me hugging my knees to my chest. "What–?"

"You think that's funny?" Thorin stood in front of them, his voice booming over and silencing their chuckles. He suddenly looked much older, and, in a way, quieter, as if he'd planned to be even more mysterious than usual. "You think a night raid by orcs is joke?"

"We didn't mean anything by it," Kili was silently forced to admit.

"No, you didn't," his uncle said. For half of a second, I swear to you that he looked at me while he said, "You know nothing of the world."

I rested my chin on the tops of my knees. How much did I really know? _Probably not much_, I thought. I mean, not every maid is given as a gracious of a master as Bilbo. Not everybody gets to go on an adventure. Not every girl gets to be swept off her feet by a prince. I suddenly thought of DJ, wondering what she was doing right about then. Wondering whether she had acted calmly to the note and locked up Bag End–or if she was freaking out. And then I wondered if she was freaking out because _I _left, or because _Fili _left. I was not the jealous type, and then was not the time to become one.

"Don't mind him, lads," Balin said to Fili and Kili, he nodded to me, "and lass."

I smiled at the gesture.

"Thorin has more cause than most," Balin continued, "to hate orcs…"

"Moria…?" I was barely aware that the words escaped me.

"You know of the story?" he asked me.

My cheeks were burning as I nodded. "I read about it, when I was 14," I said to him. "It's been a while since then though," I added hurriedly.

Balin smiled to himself at my enthusiasm, but it quickly faded as he continued the story.

Hearing Balin tell the story by memory instead of from a book was something new all together. When I had read the story, it was told like it would be in a sort of history textbook, void of any real emotion. But Balin spoke as if he'd been there, as he said that he was. And I could hear the survivor's guilt loud and clear in the end when he described how many of his kin had died in that battle, tears making his old eyes shine slightly.

"And I thought to myself then," he said, looking at Thorin, who was staring out into the distance. "_There is one who I could follow. There is one who I could call _king." By the time Balin had finished the tale, most of the company were awake and listening. Thorin seemed to have sensed them looking at him and turned around, to face his men with dignity. And as he walked back to where he'd been sleeping, they all absent-mindedly raised their heads and straightened their shoulders in respect.

"And the Pale Orc?" Bilbo inquired. "What happened to him?"

"He slunk back into the hole whence it came," Thorin answered him darkly. "That filth, died of its wounds long ago. Get some sleep, we start at the break of dawn," he reminded us.

One by one, each of the dwarves went back to sleep. Eventually, Bilbo fell asleep along with them. Not too long after, Fili asked Kili to handle the watch duty on his own, using the Do-What-I-Say power that older siblings tended to have. And because of this power, Kili agreed, and Fili soon fell asleep. That left Kili and I alone in the light of the fire–with the possible Gandalf, who was leaning against a tree at the edge of camp, smoking his pipe cryptically.

The thought of the pipe made me cough again.

"You alright?" Kili asked me.

"I'm fine," I replied, taking long slow breaths.

"You should probably get some sleep," he reminded me. "Crack of dawn, and whatnot."

"No, thanks," I said as I gazed into the fire. The image of the Pale Orc, Azog the Defiler, Thorin's long gone nemesis being dragged away from the battlefield, missing an arm was burning behind my green eyes. In a way, I was grateful that a thing as terrible as the Pale Orc was gone from the world, but I reprimanded myself for thinking that. It sounded horrifically selfish, to be glad of one's death. But the feeling wasn't exactly voluntary either way.

"What did you dream of?" Kili asked suddenly, bringing me out of my daze.

"What dream?" I asked, somewhat stupidly of me.

"When you woke up, you said that you had a bad dream," he explained. "What was it?"

I sighed and scratched the back of my neck as I tried to remember what I could of it. I didn't once stop and wonder if I should even tell him about my dream, it just felt right to tell him.

"It was weird…" I finally said. "There… was this man, I think, and he was dressed in white. It felt like I was lying down on some sort of bed, it didn't feel too comfortable. And I think I heard some lady's voice say… I think she said, 'We love you, Helena.' Yeah, that's sounds right," I nodded. "And then the man in white put something over my mouth and told me to count backwards from ten. Whatever that means," I shook it off. "It freaked me out more than anything. And then I woke up when I reached zero." Shivers ran up my spine at the thought of the dream.

"Cliffhanger, huh?" Kili said, seeming to be fully engrossed in my telling of my dream.

"Yeah," I nodded, turning to him. "Cliffhanger."


	7. Chapter 7

I spent the entirety of the first day we were in the Old Forrest looking around in a sort of fearful, curious awe. Even when it had been so long, I still remembered everything, every detail of the trees and foliage, the way the sun light seeped through the trees in patches, and the over all feel of the wilderness. I tried to keep myself from doing nothing but gawking at all of it by asking Kili questions about riding a pony.

When we stopped to have a light lunch, he showed me how to mount one. "Before you get your feminine hopes up," he began in a playfully stern voice. "I'm not going to teach you side-saddle. My mother says that's for a 'complete and utter shame of a woman,'" he added, using what I assumed was his impression of his mother. But I'm sure that her voice was nowhere near that high pitched.

"I haven't met her, but I like this lady," I said as he untied Minty from the tree on which the ponies were kept.

"She'd probably like you, too," he agreed with a smile. He quickly went over the basics of how to mount a pony, telling me where to put my foot and how to pick up the reigns and all that.

And no matter how many times he repeated the instructions, I always messed up. It took me four times to get my short stature to pull itself up onto the saddle. And on the fourth time, when I finally made it up, I made the mistake of gripping Minty's mane for balance a little bit too harshly and unexpectedly. She immediately reacted and I fell off.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Kili soothed the pony, who was whinnying and kicking madly, his arms spread out widely. When she finally calmed down and puffed air out of her nostrils, he scratched her nose. "_There_ you go, girl."

Having been quite shaken from the incident, I didn't think to get back up until just then. "Sorry." I was breathing shakily.

"It's alright," he said, his eyes on his pony as he scratched her mane lightly. He turned to me. "You okay, though?"

I quickly looked over my hands and arms. "No, nothing bad," I confirmed. "I'm alright."

Kili didn't seem to believe me, but didn't say anything about it.

As much as I wanted to continue, and try to mount the pony again, Thorin Oakenshield announced that we would be moving on. I was kind of glad that we would be going, and I wouldn't have to mount that demon-pony, Minty. But at the same time, I saw Thorin look at me, as if he was telling me to stop, like I was a danger to myself. He might have been right, but I knew that there was no way I was going to let him think that. And I knew that I would be proving to him that I could handle it out there one of those days.

* * *

But I didn't know that I would be proving it to him that very evening (more or less).

As soon as we dismounted our ponies, and hardly before we lit a fire, Thorin marched right up to me and told me to show him my skills at bow and arrows. "I won't believe Gandalf until I see it," he said.

I felt minuscule and obeying as he stood in front of me, nearly two feet taller than me. I quickly nodded. "H–h–how do I sh–show you…?" I asked stutteringly. I could see Bilbo out of the corner of my eye, looking like he was going to protest whatever it was that Thorin wanted me to do.

"Go and catch our dinner," he ordered tersely. I sensed that the _now _was implied. I quickly grabbed my bow and quiver, and walked to the edge of the clearing, then I stood there, frozen. "You realize, girl, that if I wanted you to just stand there all day I would have sent Kili?" Thorin called to me, clearly peeved, hungry, and exhausted.

Not knowing what to say in response, I practically jumped into the forest.

I had hunted before, yes, but not in those woods. And it didn't feel right to take the life of a deer or rabbit there. Among other reasons, I knew that the barrow downs were not too far away. I had seen them, when I was eleven, before I met Bilbo. The moment I realized that I was in danger, I ran in no particular direction, just away from there. I ended up in Hobbiton, which was just from pure luck. But I still never forgot what the things in the downs looked like and how afraid I was. It was the sort of fear that took root in the pit of your stomach and worked its way through you, consuming you.

I only ever went back to these woods twice in my life after that. The first time was during a sort of walking holiday with Bilbo's relatives and him. I was thirteen and proficient with my bow. When some of the hobbits started to complain about being hungry, one man volunteered to go and hunt for some food. Timidly, though not as timidly as I would have been if I was eleven at the time, I asked if I could go with him. He refused to let me come, and went on his merry way. Later, he came back with a single brown rabbit with a gray spot over his left eye.

Yes, I knew that it was a _he_… Because I'd met him before. The moment I saw the man come back with the rabbit in his hand, hanging him by the tail, I sprinted to him and tried to get him out of the man's grip, crying the entire time. Bilbo was forced to restrain me and calm me down. Everybody ignored my pleas to not eat him. Bilbo and I were the only ones that went hungry that night.

The man, however, gave me the bones of the rabbit to do whatever I wanted with. "Bury 'em or string 'em on a necklace if you wish," he said. I did no such thing; I kept them in my pocket for safekeeping.

And when I was hunting for not just Bilbo and I–but _several_ people, I was stricken with realization that I'd left them at Bag End. We had been on the road for only two days and I already regretted it. Shaking it off with a sigh, I began to look for a tree that was high enough that I could hunt from the top of it, but not so high that I would have any major injuries if I fell out of it, _again_.

* * *

I returned to camp not too long after, maybe only thirty minutes to an hour, with a reasonably sized deer slung over my shoulder. It was heavy, at least for me, and I did not enjoy how its eyes stayed open, or how much it resembled a deer that I'd acquainted when I was eleven.

The dwarves, however, did not think twice about whom the deer might be and, after a couple of pats on my back, started to cut her up for stew. And yes, it was a _her_.

"There you are," Kili said, getting up from his seat on a log, not bothering to congratulate me on its size–or hug me all of the sudden like Bilbo had. "I was starting to think you got lost."

"Forest this size, you would think so, wouldn't you?" I replied, wiping sweat from my forehead. I shook my head. "I know what I'm doing. This is nothing anyway."

I caught Gandalf look at me through the corner of my eye at what I said, his pipe in his mouth. I coughed slightly at the sight of it.

"I'm guessing it's _not _you first stag then?" Kili said as he followed me to where I sat down, my neck aching.

"No, that was when I was fourteen… and-a-half," I answered after a moment of thought. "And by the way, it's not a _stag_,it's a _doe_. Learn your gender differentiation, sir prince," I added with a smirk.

He laughed at that.

* * *

Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One… Zero…

_ My eyes snapped open in the darkness. I didn't move a muscle–I couldn't, and I didn't want to. I felt exhausted, my eyes were heavy and my limbs were stiff. Within what felt like moments, but was really hours, the sun rose with a big entrance, painting the sky in pink and orange and purple and red. It was beautiful. It was breathtaking._

_ It was so amazing that I wanted to reach up and touch it. Shakily, I did, finding that I couldn't feel anything in my fingers. _It's too high_, I decided. I then tried to get up on my feet to touch it–_

_ I was in a tree. I did not know that I was in a tree. I did not know where to put my feet when I was in a tree. I also did not know that when you were in a tree and you did not know where to put your feet, you fall._

_ Branches smacked me mercilessly as I plummeted to the earth. When I landed on my back on the ground, my breath escaped me as pain erupted in my right shoulder. I wanted to scream or cry, but I had no air in my lungs to do so. My chest rose and fell as I heaved in air, my eyes burning with tears._

_ When I finally had the energy, I reached up and took hold of a low hanging branch to help me get back on my feet. With quite a bit of difficulty, I made it, my knees feeling wobbly and my right shoulder feeling like it was on fire. I had to cradle my arm as I walked forward–I had nowhere to go, and you never hear about anybody going 'backwards'._

_ Minutes later, the sound of soft, yet happy, voices filled my ears. I quickly backed up against a nearby tree, my stomach contorting in fear. My legs were also frozen to where they stood, not letting me move when the voices' owners came into view and caught sight of me._

_ They were two old men, one of them wearing long gray robes, the other wearing brown ones, and they both were wearing hats that matched the colors of their clothes. Slowly, the taller one, the one wearing gray, walked towards me, his face alight with concern and care. "What are you doing this far out of the Shire, little one?" he asked me, bending down and putting a hand on my right shoulder. I winced at his touch. "Did you hurt yourself?" he asked._

_ I nodded instead of answering verbally._

_ Nodding as well, he placed his hand more gently over my shoulder and murmured to himself. I got the feeling that those words were powerful and shouldn't be uttered very loudly._

_ The pain subsided instantly. I looked up at him in wonder, my eyes wide and my mouth agape._

_ The man nodded with a smile on his face. "Do be careful from now on," he told me. "Shoulder dislocation is a nasty business."_

_ I nodded in agreement, looking down at my, apparently, hairy feet._

_ "Do you know where you are, little one?" the man in brown robes asked me as he drew closer._

_ Distractedly, I shakily pointed at him. Well, the side of his face, more specifically._

_ "What? What? Is there something on my face–?" He was cut off when the other man gave him a look. "Oh! Yes. Yes, yes, this is just bird poop," he answered me, directing to the dried up feces on his face._

_ I nodded in understanding, the tiniest of smiles breaking across my face. It was fitting that my first smile be so small._

_ "Now, child," the brown clothed man began again. "Do you know where you are?"_

_ My smile faded as I shook my head, _No, sir.

_"What about your parents? Do you know where they are?" he asked._

_ I looked down at my feet as I shook my head yet again._

_ "Radagast, I do believe it's clear that she is lost, so I'm sure that she doesn't want to be reminded of it," the gray clothed man said._

_ "_She_?"_

_ "Yes, of course she's a girl!"_

_ "If you say so, Gandalf, old friend."_

_ I looked from one to the other, a part of me thinking that I should offended, but the other part wondering why on earth I would be. The argument between the two men continued for another minute or so, this time in more hushed voices. I picked out a couple of phrases every once in a while, though I didn't know what they meant. They ranged from 'Neither of us should take her in; Saruman would not approve' to 'At least, give her an animal to guide her to Hobbiton' to 'But what then, Gandalf? What then?'_

_ To which the gray robed man–'Gandalf' replied, "… We let her decide. She seems like a smart girl. See, watch this." He turned to me, hope clear on his face. "What is two plus two, my dear?"_

_ Hesitantly, I held up four fingers._

_ "What is the square root of nine?" the brown clothed man–'Radagast' asked me._

_ I held up three fingers._

_ Gandalf looked at Radagast with a triumphant smirk. "Just give her an animal or two of yours to guide her," he said softly. "Have them come back once she makes it out."_

_ "Alright," Radagast replied. He put his fingers in his mouth and blew, making a harsh spitting noise. After another try, he blew again, creating a beautiful whistle._

_ And into the clearing came a rabbit, a doe, and an owl–_

* * *

I jolted awake with a soft gasp. Everyone was still asleep, most of them snoring slightly. The dwarf with a hat was on watch, staring into the fire and his war hammer in his lap. Taking a deep breath, I snatched up my bow and quiver and made my way to the edge of our camp.

"Where are you going, lassie?" the hatted dwarf called to me, softly, so as to not wake up the rest of the Company.

I froze where I stood for a second. Then I hesitantly turned to face him. "I'm… going to the bathroom," I answered.

"With your bow?" he asked.

"… Yes," I nodded, somewhat exasperatedly. "You, uh, never know what's out there. Especially at night."

"Alright, you enjoy yourself," he smiled jokingly with a nod, turning back to the fire.

I nodded as well as I turned back around. Then I spun on my heels, looking back at the dwarf. "Um, before I forget, what's your name?" I asked him.

"My name's Bofur, lassie," he smiled with a wave of his pipe.

"Nice to meet you, Bofur," I smiled. Then I turned back around and went into the dark woods.

Contrary to what I'd told him, I wasn't 'going to the bathroom'. Instead, I was planning to do one or both of two things. 1) Clear my head, and 2) find the doe, the one that Radagast the Brown had given me. I wasn't planning to shoot her–the bow really was for self-protection. In the time I'd spent there, I'd run into a nasty thing or two. Not that that a cryptic dark forest was the perfect place to start thinking about–

"What are you doing up so late–?"

The arrow that made its mark in the tree next to him really shut Kili up. He held up his hands in a sort of surrender. "Are you going to nearly kill me with an arrow often?"

"I couldn't sleep," I explained sternly. "I think the real question is _why are you following me?_"

"Did you have another nightmare?" he asked me, putting his hands down.

"I already asked you a question!"

"Yes, I know. And if the answer to _my _question is _yes_, then that's why I'm here," he explained.

I stood a bit awkwardly in front of Kili for a moment, plucking my arrow from the tree. "… Yes, I did have a nightmare– I mean, it wasn't a very bad one, but it still wasn't pleasant," I quickly added.

His face softened immediately. "What happened?" he asked.

I felt my face heat up as I searched for a log to sit down on. Not being able to find one, I sat down in the shade of a nearby tree. It only took Kili a moment to come and sit down next to me.

"It was… a sort of continuation of last night's dream. Like, I heard myself counting down from ten–then I fell out of a tree, effectively dislocating my shoulder. The thing is, that _did_ happen, I was dreaming of my _childhood_," I explained.

"How old were you?" he asked me.

"I was eleven, but it was before I became Bilbo's maid," I answered. I paused. "Actually, it was exactly three days before I became his maid." I giggled slightly to myself. "I'm dreaming of my past, so for all I know, I could be living in the past and dreaming right now and not even know about it."

"That is absolutely ridiculous!" Kili said. "Why would you ever want to live in the past?"

"I don't!" I replied, punching him roughly on the arm. "The past is a dangerous place to trek, sir prince."

"Is _that _my name now?" he laughed, rubbing the spot where I punched him.

"It is if I so…" I stopped myself when the sight of a white tailed doe standing in a patch of moonlight entered my vision. "… Choose," I finished breathlessly.

"What are you doing?" Kili asked when I got up and started tiptoeing to the doe.

"_I'm_ _visiting an old_ _friend,_ _nothing more_," I whispered back.

Getting up as well, he followed me, though he wasn't as quiet as I was, which annoyed me a bit.

"Haley…?" I called softly to the doe, using the name that Radagast had used for her. "Is that you?" She certainly looked like Haley, but I could easily have been wrong, it _was _rather dark.

At the sound of her name, Haley's ears pricked up a bit. Then when she recognized my voice, she turned her head in every direction, searching for me in the darkness.

"Haley!" I nearly exclaimed. "Yes, it's me!" My face broke out into a gigantic grin when she looked my way.

Haley sniffed the air. Her eyes were shiny, just as they always were. She took tiny steps towards me, looking like she was unsure.

Not wanting to prolong the reunion any longer, I quickly pushed through the undergrowth to get to her, effectively tripping over a log, my arrows spilling out of my quiver.

Haley took a step back at the sudden movement. Then she got a look at the arrows on the ground, sniffed them for a second–and ran away.

I froze to where I lied on my stomach on the ground, staring after where Haley had disappeared. It felt so surreal, like it wasn't happening, and it just couldn't be happening. Stiffly, I sat up and started to collect my arrows.

Kili sat down in front of me and handed me a bundle of my arrows.

"Thanks," I said hoarsely.

"You said 'old friend', right?" he asked me.

"It's a long… _long _story," I said, half hoping that he wouldn't want to hear such a story.

"Well, as far as I know, it's a long, long time before morning," he said, he looked actually concerned when I looked up at him with wide eyes.

Words spilled out of me like liquid from a pitcher.


	8. Chapter 8

I don't remember when it was that I fell asleep that night, and I started to think that the events of the previous night were just from a dream. The only thing that made me _know _that it was real was how Kili sported a foreign expression when he cast his eyes my way. A part of me wondered what was wrong with him. But then I remembered what I told him the night before, and that there was such thing as _too much _honesty.

It felt as though I was naked, every part of and about me open and visible to see and judge. I rubbed my arms self-consciously as we packed up that morning. So, starting that day and until we arrived in Bree, I rode with Bilbo on his pony, who was apparently named Myrtle.

Along with the feeling of self-exposition, I felt pretty guilty that I hadn't spent much time with Bilbo since we started the quest. I had tried to listen in on his and Gandalf's conversation, but I just couldn't hear them from where they rode, and Fili and Kili kept pulling me into a conversation– I was kind of glad that I wasn't riding with them that day, Kili would undoubtedly have a million questions and then Fili would hear and ask his own questions and then I would keep getting questioned until I was either unable to speak or unable to come up with answers…

I mentally kicked myself for letting my mind wander that far into unreasonable territories. Well, what I really did was sharply pinch myself in the arm.

"Why on earth did you do that, Helena Paige Baggins?" Gandalf asked me.

"I, uh… saw a bug," I lied.

He nodded suspiciously, like he had expected me to lie, and accepted my statement as such. Either way, he still didn't say anything about it.

_Well_, I thought. _That was easy._

* * *

It took us most of the day to get to Bree. Which meant that we were at the entrance to the town by mid-afternoon. Which meant that we had to knock on the gate for entrance.

Thorin rode up to the gate on his pony without a second thought. Though, not without telling us to look as presentable as possible. It was mostly directed at his nephews, but the point was carried out through out the company.

Moments after he roughly knocked on the gate, a man poked his head out of the peephole. He didn't have to move down to the lower peephole since we were about his height when we sat on our ponies.

"Dwarves," the man observed.

"Indeed, and we seek food and rest in your town," Thorin replied. I never exactly saw him as a king, a person who ruled over a kingdom of people, until just then. Until then, I had only saw him as the over all leader of the Company… who sometimes acted like he didn't get enough sleep the night before, and nothing more.

"The dwarves I can see, but who else is among you?" the man asked.

"We have Gandalf the Gray, Bilbo Baggins of the Shire, and his servant," Thorin explained, directing to each of us as he spoke.

The man looked straight at me. "Does the servant have a name?" he asked. "Because, I'll have you know that we do not tolerate… _trafficking _here."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gandalf nod to me ever so slightly.

"H–Helena," I answered. I cleared my throat. "My name is Helena Paige, and I've worked for Master Baggins for about fifteen years."

I saw Kili turn his head to look at me, the expression on his face finally registering in my mind. _Pity_, _sympathy_, _understanding_. He had no reason to feel any of those things towards me, and he shouldn't have. He'd known me for only _three days_, he didn't know every single thing about me, and so he didn't know if he could 'relate' to me. He simply could have pitiedme because he thought that I was absolutely insane, judging from what I told him the night before.

I was so caught up with my frustrating thoughts that refused to fizzle down that I didn't even notice that we had been permitted to enter the town until after we were a couple of yards inside.

* * *

After not bathing for three days, I nearly fell asleep in the bathtub of the room Bilbo and I shared in the Prancing Pony once or twice. I didn't like the fact that I was so used to things like baths. I had a feeling that it would be several days–_weeks _even–before I would be getting my next bath.

Not wanting to get used to such long baths, I quickly grabbed the bar of soap and lathered my arms, legs, and feet. Then I quickly washed my face, which had accumulated quite a bit of dirt over the past three days. When I made to gather some water in my hands after scrubbing my cheeks and forehead, I found blood on my fingers.

I swore to myself.

The cut on my face that I'd acquired from falling out of the tree after The Bear Incident had scabbed over. And, as I then saw, I had accidentally scratched it, effectively reopening the wound.

Sighing, I gently washed the cut again, not wanting Bilbo to see. Though, I figured that he was going to see it one of these days, so I quickly went over what to say when he did see it as I finished up my bath, scrubbing my hair hastily.

I quickly dried off and threw on my gray and white night gown, and tucked all of my hair back into my hat after I combed it, just like I always did.

So when Bilbo came stumbling into our room, I was already sitting on my bed and reading _The Journey: a Hobbit's Tale_.

"So," I started, my eyes still on my book and a smile quirking at the corner of my mouth. "How was the ale?"

"Good… Yeah, good, it was good," Bilbo said, nodding dizzily. "I'm going… to, uh… get cleaned up a bit." He started towards the bathroom, reaching for the knob–

And fell to the ground.

I immediately jumped out of bed and ran to him.

He was asleep. He was snoring on the floor in his drunken slumber. Groaning slightly, I hauled him by the elbows to his bed, dumping him unceremoniously into the sheets. I lightly tucked him in, and then jumped back into my bed.

Not long after, I blew out the candle and lied down to sleep.

Then, after an hour or two of Bilbo's incredibly loud snoring, I grabbed my pillow and blanket, and exited the room. I then situated myself on the floor of the hallway outside our–now _Bilbo's_ room, and lied down, falling asleep faster than I thought was possible.

* * *

_The owl that Radagast had given me, who refused to be called anything but 'Mother', was leading us through the forest. I didn't argue with her, not seeing why I should. Henry–the rabbit–and Haley–the doe–certainly didn't argue. I didn't exactly like Mother, but, in a weird way, I still trusted her._

_ So I didn't think twice about where she was leading us, whether it was in the right direction or not. She had this sort of feeling around her that told you that she was very wise and knew what she was doing._

_ So, when she stopped where she flew in the air, I had no idea what to expect or to do. Henry and Haley went just as still as she did, sniffing the air diligently._

_ Then, as quickly as the dropping of a stone, they all spun around and sprinted in the direction we had come from, leaving me where I stood. I had no idea what they were running from, if anything at all. I was also confused as to why they didn't tell me why they ran away, especially Henry and Haley. Mother, however, I sort of understood, she didn't take the highest of likings to me. Over all, she seemed to be much more concerned with Haley, glancing every once in a while over her wings and occasionally sitting on her head, as if to tell her where to go._

_ And in the midst of my rambling thoughts, I saw it._

_At first, the clinking sound of jewelry filled my ears. I thought that some kindly rich lady was lost in the woods, and I made to go and help her, ignoring the growing fog._

_And, like pale fire, two eyes shined through the fog, soon to be accompanied by several more. Then I felt the pawing at my hands, as if, whatever it was, was trying to comfort me, a lost child. The eyes were bright yet soft and gentle. The pawing slowly turned to a firm handhold. I felt _too _firm, and too cold and hot at the same time. And before I knew it, I was being pulled further into the fog, towards the eyes._

_I resisted, just the slightest bit, and the eyes immediately went from their kind, bright, pale color to a more demanding hue._

_I screamed, pulling with all of my childish strength until my hand was free–_

_Then I ran. I ran in no particular direction, just away from there. I ran like every monster that I could think of was on my tail–which, in some way, was true. No matter how fast I ran, I could still see through the corner of my eye that the fog was gaining on me, and, by consequence, so were the eyes._

_The sudden sunlight nearly blinded me as my feet touched down on the land of a clear pasture. When I was a good ten or eleven paces away from the woods, I turned back around to check and see if the eyes were still following me. I fainted before I could conclude that they weren't–_

* * *

"In what universe is it alright to wear a hat while you sleep?" Kili asked me, effectively waking me up with a short gasp.

"You're drunk," I sluggishly accused, sitting up and stretching my back, "aren't you?"

"I'm not sure," he said, plopping himself down on the floor across from me. "How many fingers am I holding up?" He held up two fingers.

"That's not how it works," I told him. "What time is it?" I rubbed at my eyes and took some deep breaths–the dream had shaken me up a bit.

"I don't know," he answered. "Late enough that I was sleeping moments ago, but early enough that no one else besides you and I are awake." I just then noticed that he was shoeless and wearing pajamas–a light blue tunic and pants of the same color–he also had a pretty messy bed head.

"Wow," I elongated. "That was pretty good grammar for a drunken dwarf."

"Oh!" Kili nearly exclaimed. "I'm not drunk at all–I just have a _hangover_. You really can't survive if you confuse the two."

I couldn't help but giggle slightly at his comment.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked me. "I'm willing to bet that there are several more drunkards down stairs who could get bored any moment now, come up here, see you, and do _anything_ they want." He talked like he was a child telling a scary campfire story.

I snorted. "Yeah, I'm _so _afraid," I said, casting my eyes to the floor.

"That's my girl," he said, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall. "Not afraid of… anything," he yawned.

Ignoring the first part of his statement, and not wanting to mention how I _was _afraid of a selected few things, I asked, "Was there a reason why you decided to wake me up? I was dreaming rather peacefully, thank you," I lied.

Kili's eyes snapped open. "Liar," he accused me. "You're eyes and nose were all scrunched up and you had the blanket fisted in your hand. Bad dream?"

"Not every single dream I have is bad," I snapped. "And if you haven't made your decision yet, I won't be telling it to you."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up here," he stopped me. "What 'decision'?"

My face heated up as I gave him the lowdown. "… When I told Bilbo and DJ what happened to me when I was eleven, they both stopped talking to me for a day or two, digesting the information. And when they spoke to me again, they said that they had 'made the decision' to not cast me out, like any reasonable person would to a potentially insane girl… So, after I told you, I just wanted to give you some space to decide, in case you didn't notice."

Kili swore. I'd never heard him swear before then. I had a fleeting feeling that it had rubbed off from me to him. But he said the swear like he knew what he was doing.

"They did that?" he asked incredulously. "Even DJ?"

"Yeah," I sighed. "She didn't talk to me again until Anne Bracegirdle punched me in the nose. She rushed to my side and knocked her unconscious for me." I cracked a smirk at the memory.

"_That's _the DJ I met in the Shire!" he cheered, raising his fists in the air.

I smiled down at the floor.

Kili interrupted my thoughts. "Oh–I have to decide now, don't I?"

"Um… Yeah, I guess," I nodded nervously.

"Wrong. I already decided when you told me. And it's complete and utter–" _swear-swear_ "–that you thought that I had to _decide_ whether I wanted to be friends with you or not."

I hesitated, staring at him without blinking, waiting for him to say that he'd been joking, or something. He looked back at me seriously–well, as seriously as he could with a hangover. A smile nearly exploded across my face.

"I'm positive that this is going to come back and bite you in the butt eventually," I admitted, "but thanks, Kili."

"You are welcome, Helena," he said, a similar smile forming on his face. "Now, why on earth are you sleeping out here?" he asked me.

"Bilbo was drinking with you all earlier," I began. "And when he came back, he fell asleep. And he is in there right now, snoring _incessantly_." We launched into an episode of laughs at my explanation.

"That doesn't mean you should sleep out here all by yourself," Kili said when we finished laughing.

"You're just too lazy to walk back to your room, aren't you?" I accused.

"Yeah…" he said, stretching out onto the floor.

I stood up. "Well, you can't just sleep on the floor without a blanket," I reprimanded him. "You'll catch a cold." I then opened the door to Bilbo's room and walked inside. I quickly grabbed a pillow and blanket and walked back out, leaving a still fast asleep Bilbo to himself in his bed.

I found Kili also fast asleep on the floor. I harshly hit him in the gut with the pillow, effectively waking him up with a startled shout, gripping his back and hip for a weapon of some kind.

"What was that for?" he nearly shouted at me.

I tossed him his pillow and blanket and sat back down on the floor across from him.

"Ground rules," I started.

"Do you have ground rules for _everything_?"

"Rule Number One, no falling asleep on me, sir prince."

"Fine. That's reasonable."

"Thank you," I said with a tip of my hat in his direction, wrapping my blanket around my shoulders with a smile.

"Why do you always wear that hat?" he asked.

"That's for me to know and for you to find out in your own time," I answered.

"Alright," he agreed. "I'm just curious, 'cause you never really see dwarf women wearing hats. And I haven't seen any hobbit women wear any either, now that I think about it."

"Well…" I paused in thought. "I guess hats aren't _that _common for hobbit women, unless they have flowers and bows and all of that stuff on them. This used to have a blue flower on it, I cut it off later." I indicated where the flower used to be on the hat with my finger.

"Ah," Kili nodded.

"Yeah, most of them like to exploit their _nice curly hair_ instead," I added.

"While you choose to hide yours?" he inquired with a raise of his eyebrows in my direction.

I nodded. "It would be safe to say that if you ever see my hair, Hell has frozen over."

After that statement, we fell into a sort of comfortable, sleepy silence, neither of us waiting for the other to speak. I then hoped beyond hope that this wasn't the last time we talked to each other so casually like we did. Kili broke the silence, though I didn't tell him to be quiet.

"What did you dream about? You said you'd tell me if I made my decision."

"I dreamt… of when I was left in the Barrow Downs, to the Barrow-wights…"


	9. Chapter 9

That night, my sleep was dreamless. I think it was because I was in a better state of mind after talking to Kili. I _know _that helped. And, if my dreams were going in chronological order of how they happened to me (as I assumed they were), I was dreaming of the time I spent when I was unconscious. I didn't mind it though. Getting no dreams was better than getting a bad one.

When my eyes fluttered open when I woke up–Maid Sense always made me wake up early–Kili was still asleep, lying right where I had last seen him, a foot or two away from me. He looked younger and more peaceful, his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open slightly, hair hanging in his face. The fact that he was still sleeping made me want to keep sleeping as well, knowing that it was acceptable to not always wake up at the crack of dawn. The thought was foolish, really, when I thought about it. Even if I went back to sleep then, I was going to be waking back up sooner or later.

Carefully, I stood up from where I was lying, gave him my blankets, and entered Bilbo's room. Bilbo was still sleeping, too, and snoring just as loudly as the night before. When I gingerly opened the curtains, I saw that the sun was just coming up in a painting of pink and yellow and blue. Every part of me wanted to be a child again and reach out and touch the sunrise. Every part of me wondered why I couldn't. Every part of me wondered why I shouldn't.

I threw open the window, took in the fresh air, and… looked _down_. That, I thought to myself. _That's why I shouldn't touch the sun. _And, as I then realized, I was not even on the top floor. If I wanted to touch the sunrise, I would need to be on the top floor, and probably sit on the roof. _Heights_, I shuddered. I then decided that I _was _going to touch it one of those days, and closed the window.

* * *

All of the dwarves each had their own forms of hangovers, ranging from a simple drowsiness to a booming headache. Thorin clearly had a pretty bad one, but he didn't let it show. That was one of the many things that I noticed during our mostly silent breakfast. We quietly discussed our plans for the day ahead, how far we would be going and all of that. Some of the dwarves thought that it might be raining soon. To this I quietly agreed to with a nod.

I saw Bilbo look at me jokingly, as if to say, "Well, now that you've agreed, it probably won't." As he loved to remind me, it never rained when I said that it would. It became a sort of inside joke of ours over the years. I thought that it _was _rather funny, but I knew one day I was going to get it right, _eventually_.

It wasn't even noon and I already had two new goals in life.

* * *

And just after noon, one of the goals was fulfilled.

By about that time, just after we finished eating our light lunch, it started pouring rain. Most of the dwarves swore and pulled up their hoods and made to protect our supplies. I, unlike them, beamed a smile up to the clouds and held my arms out wide, shouted, "I TOLD YOU, BILBO!" and spun in circles around our clearing.

I could hear some of the dwarves, Bofur, Kili, and Fili for instance, laugh at/with me. I heard other dwarves say stuff about how I was too childish for the quest, like Thorin, Gloin, and Dwalin. I also heard Bifur say something; I didn't know what since he seemed to only be able to speak some dwarf language, but I doubted that it was in my favor. Then I heard Bilbo yell, "You're going to be the death of yourself, Helena!" Proudly. He yelled it proudly.

"That she is, dear Bilbo," Gandalf agreed with a smile. I then slipped and fell in a mud puddle. "That she is…"

Kili was at my side within seconds of my falling. He looked at me like I was something delicate that could break at any moment. I punched him in the shoulder when he tried to help me up and got up myself. He ended up falling on his butt in the mud at my punch. I was moving to help him up when he pulled me back down, effectively coating the left half of my face in mud. Thorin's angry shouting at us to stop our shenanigans joined the sounds of the beating rain, the mud in my ear, and Kili's laughter seconds later.

I felt like a child again–not in a good way though, scrambling to get up and out of the mud before the _adult _got to me. Thorin wasn't like any adult that I'd encountered before. He didn't tell me that he expected more of me, or tell me that I was too old to be behaving the way I did. He just yelled at me to stop and didn't say anything else. He didn't press any further and didn't try to teach me any sort of stupid life lesson.

It was odd. All the adults that I knew did those kinds of things when I did something stupid, except for Bilbo, that is. He would laugh with me for a minute, then he would 'sternly' ground me from seeing DJ for a couple of days. It was fun.

* * *

Our clothes kind of just washed themselves as we rode the ponies in the rain. I rode with Kili atop Minty this time. Eventually, Kili pulled up his hood and offered me one of his jackets. I declined but thanked him, leaving myself with nothing but my clothes and hat for protection–I wasn't even that cold, to be honest. But, in a way, the decline was also my way of hushing him so that I could hear what Bilbo and Gandalf were talking about. After missing their conversations for the first few days, I, quite frankly, wanted to just talk to my master and old friend.

"Are there any?" I heard Bilbo ask Gandalf after he told off the dwarf that I knew was named Dori. "Other wizards?"

I opened my mouth to answer him, having read about this before, but Gandalf beat me to it.

"There are five of us," he started. "The greatest of our order is Saruman… the White." I nodded, even though I was sure he couldn't see me. "Then there are the two Blues… You know, I have quite forgotten their names." I went through my mind, and as I then thought about it, I couldn't quite recall their names either.

"And who is the fifth?" Bilbo asked.

I smirked to myself at the thought of the goofy Radagast the Brown.

"That would be Radagast the Brown," Gandalf explained.

"Is he a great wizard, or is he…" Bilbo began, "more like you?"

A part of me wanted to hit Bilbo upside the head at that comment. Another part of me wanted to burst out laughing. Seeing how far away I was from him, I chose the second option, decidedly starting to snicker to myself, hoping nobody would notice. Kili apparently noticed, but didn't say anything, having started chuckling at the same thing himself.

"I think he is a very great wizard– In his own way…" Gandalf answered. "He is a gentle soul who prefers the company of animals to others. He keeps a watchful eye over the vast forestlands to the east. And a good thing too, for always evil will look to find a foothold in this world… And I'm sure that Helena can give you some more information if you so desire."

I choked on air at his words. My ears burned as Bilbo looked back at me.

Moments later, Bilbo was riding beside Kili and I. "What does he mean by that?" he asked me.

"… Remember what happened when I was eleven, Bilbo?" I whispered back to him after a moment.

He nodded.

"Gandalf and Radagast were the ones who first found me," I explained.

"Oh, right." Bilbo ruffled his hair. "I feel like I should've known that."

"No, it's alright," I stopped him, putting my hand on his arm. "We just haven't talked about it in a while, that's all."

Bilbo's eyes then widened when he realized that Kili could very easily hear us.

"Oh, no," I started. "I'm, uh… trying out that whole 'new slate' thing. Like, I'm going to try to not be quite as spooked over what happened as I used to be," I mostly lied. "And I'm pretty sure that a step in that is I talking about it." That was probably true.

"Ah," Bilbo nodded. "If you say so…"

"I _do _say so," I replied with a smile.

We spent the rest of the day with Bilbo asking questions of Radagast and I answered them, as I was able. I could tell that Kili was listening after a while and went ahead and included him when I could. The new–though most likely useless information seemed to enlighten him.

* * *

The structural remains of a farmer's house were admittedly pretty spooky. I tried my best to not look at them.

"Fairly well, no dreams; you?" I replied when Kili asked me how I slept the night before.

"Well, that's good," he said with a smile. "I slept pretty well, I think. Maybe didn't get enough, though. I might've slept better if I wasn't sleeping on the floor."

I laughed at that. "Hey, you _chose _to sleep there, sir prince," I smirked as he handed me a saddle to stack up with the others. "And I know the feeling. Sleeping well but not getting enough, I mean. That's the basic sleeping pattern of a maid."

"You keep talking about being a maid, but you don't seem like one," he observed. "Like, you don't really seem like someone who does what they're told for a living."

"Uh… Thanks," I said with a raised eyebrow. "I mean, it's not exactly _ideal_, but, hey, it gets me food and shelter. And Bilbo really isn't bossy or anything, he thinks of me as his child, and I think of him as my father," I explained as I stacked up the saddle I held.

"What do you mean?" he asked me. "Did you never know you're real father?"

"No, not that I'm aware of," I answered with shake of my head. "I don't remember anything that happened to me before that little incident when I was eleven."

"Then how do you know you were eleven when that happened?" Kili asked me.

I was about to explain to him that when Bilbo took me in, he took me to a doctor to check for any diseases, having spent the last three days in the forest and all. And I was so small and thin that when we went in, the doctor had predicted that I was about eleven years old, since I had no idea how old I was, but he also said that I was clearly starving and weak. I was always shorter and thinner than the average hobbit-girl. I was about to explain that entire instance when Gandalf started marching away from our leader, muttering about how he had had enough of dwarves–and presumably hobbits as well–for one day.

"Gandalf, where are you going?" Bilbo asked him nervously.

"To seek the company of the only one around here with any sense!" the wizard replied.

"And who's that?" he asked.

"Myself, Mister Baggins!" he yelled across the clearing.

Kili leaned in closer to me and whispered, "Should we be offended by that?"

I thought about it for a minute. "Nah," I answered with a shake of my head. "He just likes to be alone sometimes… as far as I know. I only saw him a couple of times after I met him when I was eleven, we've both changed a bit. We've both gotten older. Wiser, too, I hope."

Kili laughed at that.

* * *

Arguably, it wasn't the smartest of decisions to make Bombur and I cook our supper that night. If just Bombur was cooking, it might've been incredible. But then Thorin just had to make me help him… I looked it up in a dictionary some time later, and nowhere in the definition of 'maid' does it say that we all know how to cook.

Ever since I was young, I couldn't cook. Baking, I was _okay _at that. Cooking, I was terrible at that. I'm not even sure what it was that I did wrong that time, but every time I tasted the stew, I nearly spit it out.

Then when Bombur tasted it, he told me that it wasn't half bad.

I stared at him, thinking he was joking. He wasn't joking. Seconds later, he was ladling the stew for everyone to eat. I was terrified–_mortified. _It was terrible and I knew it.

And the dwarves actually liked it. _Liked _it. I saw Bilbo, however, trying to suppress a gag. He never particularly liked my cooking, and I was never offended by it, because I never really liked it either.

I then told Bombur that I was going to give Fili and Kili their supper, since they were off in the woods, looking after the ponies. I quickly took the bowls, slung my bow and quiver over my shoulder out of habit, and went on my way. If there was anybody around there that was going to be honest with me and tell me how terrible it was, it was those two brothers.

I found them with their shoulders tense and looking at something in the distance.

I looked from one to the other, both of which hadn't even seen me yet. "Um… You guys okay?" I asked them nervously.

"We're supposed to be looking after the ponies," Kili answered.

"Only we've encountered a… slight problem," Fili continued, turning to me slightly.

"We had sixteen," the younger of the two said.

"Now there's… fourteen," the older one said.

I stuttered until I could think of anything to say. "… 'Look after the ponies.' That was all you had to do!" I exclaimed.

"Not helping!" Kili said as we started looking around the trees.

"Okay, fine…" I set the two bowls down on a log and rubbed my forehead in frustrated thought. "What happened?" I asked them as calmly as I could.

"Okay, we _swear_, we were just sitting by this tree," Kili began, indicating what tree they were sitting by. "We turn our heads for _one second_. And when we looked back–they were gone!"

"This isn't helping very much either!" I nearly exclaimed. "Where do you think they went? I mean– Whoa…" I breathed upon the sight of several uprooted trees. "What does that to trees, exactly?"

The brothers turned around and got a look at what I was questioning.

"Something… big?" Kili suggested.

"Very big?" Fili added.

"Okay then," I breathed, nodding dizzily. "Okay, so, it's something… very big, and, uh… H–How far away from the old forest are we?"

"A good day or so," Fili answered. "Why? What's wrong?" he asked, putting a hand on my shoulder after noticing how tense I was.

"Helena, I know what you're thinking of," I heard Kili say. "And we are nowhere near there."

I looked up. He was standing where his brother was seconds before, right in front of me, and his face gentle yet stern. "They can move," I contradicted him. "They chased me all the way out of the forest."

"I'm sorry,_ what _chased you?" Fili asked.

I turned to him. "When I was a little girl… I got lost in the Old Forest and I ran into these… monster-ghost-things. I haven't forgotten them, that's all," I explained, carefully leaving certain details out.

"Oh, okay, but what makes you think they came all the way here–?"

We practically fell to the ground at the sound of the stomping and whinnying of ponies, the shaking of the ground helped too. Covering my mouth was all that I could do to stop myself from screaming. We could clearly see the creature walk across the field in the moonlight, carrying two more ponies in its arms. The moment it was gone, I ran up to a fallen tree, peering over it to see three trolls sitting around a fire.

A gigantic grin exploded across my face.

"Nothing to be afraid of!" I softly announced to the two brothers, who were looking at me like I was crazy. "Just three trolls! No Barrow-wights! Just some… Wait… Oh–" _swear!_


	10. Chapter 10

There comes a time in everybody's life when you have to stop and evaluate what the heck got you into the mess that you're facing at the moment. And my mind was blank as I stared at the three gigantic trolls sitting around a pot atop a fire, our ponies inside a cage made of rope off to the side. My thoughts were slowly going from shocked to terrified, from terrified to frustrated, from frustrated to planning, from planning to execution–

"Who left this soup on a log?" Bilbo asked as he came into our proximity. My hands were inches from grabbing an arrow and my bow, my breathing and heart rate rapid. "What's wrong?" Bilbo asked nervously, having seen the look on my face.

"Well…" Kili drawled, his eyes drifting in the direction of the trolls. "Funny story!" he started.

Fili hit his younger brother upside the head as he continued the explanation. "The ponies were captured by trolls," he stated simply, either trying to be the mature one and maybe take responsibility for what happened, or making it clear that he had nothing to do with what happened what so ever and it was all Kili's fault.

"Oh dear," Bilbo said several times at Fili's words. "That's not good. That's not good at all. Shouldn't we tell Thorin?"

"Uh–no," Fili answered quickly. "We shouldn't worry him."

I rolled my eyes in his direction, knowing what he meant by that. _Don't tell him, he'd kill us mercilessly._ I couldn't help but agree with him on that, though.

"O–okay, but what do we do now?" Bilbo asked nervously, his eyes going to me.

"As our official burglar," Fili continued. "We thought _you_ might want to look into it." _And by _we _he means _me, I thought as we guided Bilbo to the log where we could view the trolls from a 'safe' distance.

"What are they?" Bilbo asked uncertainly.

"Trolls," Kili answered.

Bilbo stood up a bit taller, getting a better look at what ponies they had captured. "They've got Myrtle, Minty, Daisy, and Bungo," he announced softly to us. "I think they're going to eat them, we have to do something."

Fili and Kili turned to him at the same time. "Yes. _You _should," Kili started, taking one of the bowls of soup from his hands and pushing him forward. "Mountain trolls are slow and stupid, and you're so small they'll never see you."

It didn't take long for Bilbo to start saying nothing but 'No, no, no."

"It's perfectly safe," Kili lied. "We'll be right behind you."

"If you run into trouble," Fili added, taking the other bowl, "hoot once like a barn owl, and twice like a brown owl." And with that, Bilbo was pushed further towards the clearing filled with three trolls, mumbling the instructions of what to hoot like and how many times to do it.

The entire time, I was frozen to where I crouched by the log, trying to interject several times, but no words came out of my mouth. Bilbo had only ever been in the woods once as far as I knew, and that was to fetch me from it when there was a storm coming and I was stuck in a tree.

"No matter what you think," he'd called up to me. "I _will _catch you." He'd opened his arms out wide in preparation for me to jump. It took a quite a bit more coaxing, but I eventually jumped, screaming as I fell into his arms.

Then, several years later–when trolls were involved, it felt like we had switch places. With poor Bilbo at the top of the tree, and pitiful me at the bottom, not even moving to catch him.

The quiet slurping of stew brought me out of my daze.

"_What are you doing?_" I hissed at the two brothers eating their supper.

"Eating," Kili answered simply. "It's almost cold, but it's not bad. Do you want some?"

"No," I replied just as simply. "What I _want _is for you two to 'be right behind' Bilbo like you said you would. And besides," I added, looking back at the trolls. "It's terrible."

"What is?" Fili asked.

"The stew!" I answered. "Don't you think so?"

"I don't know what you normally eat in the Shire, but this is about as good as it's going to get out here," he said, pointing at the bowl in his hands.

"No, that's not what I mean," I said quickly, jumping to the conclusion that he'd just called me a prissy little hobbit-girl. That's probably what I looked like. "I cooked it. I'm a horrible cook. I tasted it. It's terrible," I said, slowly.

"Oh, now I get it," Kili said. "Dwarvish women are terrible cooks, and we've gotten used to it, so this is actually pretty good by comparison."

"Thanks, I guess," I said without any real gratitude, standing up and tiptoeing closer to the trolls.

"What are you doing?" I heard Kili ask as he walked up to me a moment later.

"Preparing to save Bilbo's butt since it's quite clear that you two won't be doing that anytime soon."

"Helena, it's going to be okay," he said, grabbing me by the elbows. "Fili just left to get the others."

At first, I thought he was joking. But when I looked, there was no sign of his blonde older brother. That was the quietest that I had ever seen (more or less) a dwarf move, and it caught me quite off guard. I glanced between the dwarf in front of me and where I had last seen his older brother.

"And it's not like I'd let you take on three trolls by yourself," he added, "without watching."

I laughed slightly as I put my arms back down at my sides. "Okay," I mumbled, turning back in the direction I was going in, shifting my quiver on my back. "I'll let you tag along, but I'll have you know that I run a very tight shift around here," I added jokingly.

"Kili, son of Dis, reporting for troll-duty, ma'am," he said with a salute.

I couldn't help but laugh under my breath as we kept walking. When we finally found a decent hiding place–a large shrubbery along the outline of the clearing–we watched Bilbo sneak around the trolls from where we hid.

"Have you dealt with trolls before?" I asked Kili nervously.

"Yeah. There was an attack on the Blue Mountains not too long ago. You?"

"No. I've read about them, but… I don't think that's going to help me much."

"Do they not come to the Shire?"

"_Nothing _comes to the Shire," I stated like it was obvious.

"You need to get out more," he said.

"What do you think I'm doing right now?"

"Okay, okay, I get it. But take this, will you?" Kili held out a dagger, hilt towards me.

"What for–?"

I was cut off by a strangled yelp and a startled shriek. At the sight of what was happening, it might have been funny under different circumstances.

Bilbo had accidentally been picked up–having not been seen yet–had been sneezed on in the place of a handkerchief, and been tossed to the ground in fright. One of the trolls pointed a large knife at him, making me quickly stuff the dagger into one of my trouser pockets and reach for an arrow. The troll said, "What are you then? An over sized squirrel?"

"No, I'm burglar–_a hobbit!_" Bilbo quickly corrected himself.

"A burga-obbit?!" one of the trolls exclaimed.

I couldn't help but look at Kili, as I to ask him if these were actual trolls, if they really were stupid enough to think that there was such thing as a 'burga-obbit'. When I turned back to the trolls, my arrow ready to be pulled back when I was ready, Bilbo was being momentarily chased around the campfire, darting between the trolls' legs. Then he was being dangled upside down, the knife being pointed at him again, and being asked, "Are there anymore of you hiding where you shouldn't?"

In his upside down state, I swear that he tried to look in our direction, as if to make sure that we were okay, but it was only for a second. "No," he answered quickly.

"He's lying," one of the other trolls hissed.

"Stay down," Kili ordered me as he pulled his sword from its sheath.

"What? No–!" I started before he ran into the forest.

"Hold his toes over the fire," the troll said. "Make him squeal–!"

And there he was.

Charging into the scene with his sword held high, slicing the troll at its ankle, came Kili. I had no time to gasp before he shouted, "DROP HIM!"

The rustling of leaves made me aware of the dwarves as they passed by me.

"You what?" the troll holding Bilbo asked him.

The moment I stood up and tried to follow them, Bofur and Oin stayed behind a second to tell me to stay hidden–that it would be dangerous, and then they continued on with the rest of their kin.

"I said," Kili repeated, spinning his sword in his hand like a toy. "_Drop him._"

Without further ado, the troll holding Bilbo tossed him in Kili's direction, making them fall to the ground as he tried to catch him.

And out came the dwarves, roaring battle cries reminiscent of the ones they'd use in real war. They were charging into the clearing like one of their own kin was in danger. The sight of just Bilbo had shocked the trolls. Adding Kili added some more complications. But putting in the entire Company of Thorin Oakenshield–minus myself–was more than they could have dreamed of handling.

And I wasn't there to help. I was stuck behind a shrubbery; my weapons at the ready, _watching_ them fight the trolls instead of _helping_. Either way, I wasn't sure what I _could_ do to help. I was used to hunting animals, animals that Bilbo and I would be eating later and had no idea that I was about to kill them. But the trolls were very well aware of how the dwarves wanted to kill them, but they weren't making much damage. I'd read somewhere before (probably in a text book of some kind) that a troll's hide was especially tough, and the dwarves weren't exactly hitting any fatal spots…

_I'm going to get myself killed up there one of these days_, I thought as I walked towards the line of trees that surrounded the clearing.

* * *

It took me so long to find a decent tree for my plan, that once I was at the top, half of the dwarves were tied to a spit over the fire, and the other half–plus Bilbo–were in bags off to the side. A part of me wondered if they had their arms and legs tied up inside there, because the knots that secured the bags at their necks didn't seem very tight. Not having the time to actually think about such a ridiculous question, or listen to what Bilbo was saying to distract the trolls–the words 'cooking dwarf' seemed to stick out–I quickly climbed up another branch and tried to balance as best as I could while I planned out my route. When I finally had my path mapped out, I took out a single arrow and notched it to the string of my bow, waiting for just the right moment…

Eventually, Bilbo tried to save Bombur from being eaten whole by saying that he had… _parasites_. "He's got worms… in his… tubes," he stammered. Disgusted and frightened, the troll holding Bombur dropped him back onto the pile of dwarves in sacks. "In–in fact, they all have them. They're _infested _with parasites, it's a terrible business–I wouldn't risk it, I really wouldn't," Bilbo explained further.

The dwarves did not take this lightly. And never before have I wanted to murder Kili so badly. When Oin asked him what Bilbo had just said, not having his hearing trumpet with him, Kili said, "Yeah, that's what he said. WE DON'T HAVE PARASITES! _YOU _HAVE PARASITES!" I lightly hit my head against the tree trunk in frustration.

Needless to say, the rest of the dwarves did not like being called 'infested with parasites', and shouted at Bilbo about the insult. "I won't forget that!" Dwalin called from his spot on the spit.

The dwarves' words resulted in Thorin giving a sharp kick to his nephew's back, shutting them right up.

"I've got parasites as big as my arm," Oin said.

"MINE ARE THE BIGGEST PARASITES–I'VE GOT _HUGE_ PARASITES!" Kili hurriedly added.

"We're riddled!" Ori shouted from the spit.

"Yes, riddled!" Dori agreed.

And so and so forth. I think that it _was _a pretty good trick on Bilbo's part, but the dwarves kind of over played it a bit…

"What would you have us do then?" one of the trolls asked Bilbo. "Let 'em all go?"

Bilbo nodded his head to the side. "Well…" he elongated.

"You think I don't know what you're up to?" The troll poked Bilbo in the chest, almost making him topple over. "This little ferret is taking us for fools," he said to the others.

"Ferret?" Bilbo inquired.

"Fools?" another troll inquired.

_Now_, I thought decidedly, pulling an arrow back and releasing it.

I was aiming at the head of the troll turning the spit, but he'd moved at the last second, the arrow whizzing past his eyes as it made its mark in a tree. "'Ey, Bill, Tom, look 'ere!"

"What is it now, Bert?" the one that had been talking to Bilbo asked exasperatedly.

"There's an archer out 'ere," the troll, 'Bert' said, pointing at the arrow that almost killed him.

Hurriedly, I jumped from the branch I was on to the next. I readied another arrow and shot it, the arrow driving through one of the trolls' ear. While that troll plucked it from his ear, the one standing closest to the dwarves said, "There's more of you out there, aren't there? Another dwarf or another flurga-bobbit."

"No!" Bilbo said a bit too quickly.

"That's what I thought," the troll said as he started to search the trees.

Not hesitating, I jumped to another tree and shot again and again, both times hitting 'Bert' in the arm; he plucked them out like they were nothing.

"Blimey, this one's quick!" the third troll exclaimed.

"Tom, shut up and help me find him!" the other one ordered, turning in my direction.

I quickly switched paths and jumped again, almost missing the branch, but climbing onto it nonetheless. This time, I shot at the troll named Tom's shoulder, then Bert's shoulder, and then the other's shoulder. I then jumped to the next tree without really looking.

The branch barely grazed the tips of my fingers. Gravity did not let me latch onto it like I had to the other ones, instead, gravity made me fall.

I yelped and gasped for air when I thudded to the ground, landing on my back in a pile of leaves and grass, my vision going fuzzy for a moment and my eyes starting to burn with tears.

The sight of a large head and then a chubby hand brought me back from my pain.

"'Ere's our little archer, Bill!" the troll named Tom exclaimed as held me up by my left arm, plucking my bow from my hand and my quiver from my back.

"'Ello, little guy," the troll named Bill said patronizingly. I stole a glance at the dwarves, who were gasping at the sight of me.

"If I'm a 'guy' then what are you?" I asked, raising my voice so that I'd sound brave and heroic.

"Ooh, it's a she,_ and_ a spitfire," Bert commented. "I hope she's tasty."

My eyes widened at his words.

_"Why are you so smart, Unnamed Spitfire?"_

_ "You're so smart, Unnamed Spitfire, why don't you do our homework for us?"_

_ "No one needs to know. And if you tell Miss Proudfoot, you'll be in trouble…"_

_ "Good, Spitfire. Give it back to us by tomorrow morning, and no funny business, like, putting down the wrong answers, or anything!"_

_ "And don't think we're just kidding, Spitfire!"_

_ "Yeah, we know exactly where to find you! You're always hanging out with that dumb blonde, Daisy Jane!"_

_ "What do you have to say about that, Unnamed Spitfire?"_

"I don't know, Bert," the troll named Tom, the one holding me, said. "It doesn't look like a lady."

"Fine, then. Are you a lady or not, Little Spitfire?" Bert asked me, bending down to level his face with my dangling form.

I locked eyes with him, and gripped the knife Kili had given me in my pocket.

"Go on, we don't 'ave all night and Tom will never stop asking."

_"What do you have to say about that, Unnamed Spitfire?"_

_Swear_–"you!" I screamed as I whipped out the knife and stabbed him in the eye. As he stumbled backwards, I quickly slashed at the hand of the troll holding me, making him drop me in fright.

The air was knocked out of me a second time as I came down to earth, something not feeling quite right.

When I finally summoned the energy to turn my head to the side–ignoring the trolls' angry shouts–I caught sight of my left arm in the bonfire. Tears splashing over my cheeks at the sight, I numbly attempted to move it out–barely registering the crack of a rock and the trolls' cries of agony. When my arm was out of the fire's range, I started coughing at the smell of the smoke, the sight of my own arm making me want to throw up–not even listening to the worried shouts of my name.

The now daylight sky was spinning before my eyes as I stared up at it, until Bilbo came into my sight.

"Hi," I said, my voice dry and hollow.

"Don't you dare scare me like that again, Helena Paige Baggins!" he exclaimed breathlessly, his eyes shining with tears.

"Sorry, Dad," I said, not really knowing what words were coming out of my mouth.

Not wasting another second, he hugged me… he hugged me like I was the only person in the world that he cared about.

I then passed out, the world around me turning black like a bottomless pit.


End file.
